Apples and Oranges
by MJJP
Summary: Two very different Digidestined need a bit of help expressing their feelings to one another, and they have just the right pair of friends for the job. Contains Koumi and Taiora.
1. Chapter 1: It's That Simple

**With the conclusion of my first fic, I wanted to change tact a little bit. This will be a shorter, much more light-hearted story that has Koumi as the focus, but with Taiora on the side (can't help myself). I did promise a reader about a year ago I would do something like this when I finished my first fic, so this is it basically. I'm really just trying to have a bit of fun with this one, kinda in preparation for my next big story. Other than that, hope you enjoy.**

Izzy Izumi raced up the steps of the apartment block, the lift being, predictably, out of order. The young computer genius was short of breath, having jogged the whole way from his own home in another apartment block, part way across Odaiba. He would normally have walked, not least because of his real lack of athleticism, but with what was bearing on his mind, his current predicament was anything but normal, at least for him.

Izzy was a young man who liked facts and logic, and what he was experiencing was perhaps the furthest thing from his comfort zone that he could think of. He was both elated and terrified by the mere thought of it, and his mind was spinning with more than just a thought. He was experiencing a fixation, and he was going to one of the few people he hoped would be able to help him.

Panting as he finally came upon the apartment door he wanted, Izzy knocked three times, his fist creating a gentle, echoing rap against the wood. He waited for a few moments, doing his best not to dance on the spot with all of his pent up anxiety, despite his fatigue from having jogged so far. Mercifully, the door opened to reveal the exact person he was looking for.

"Hey Izzy, good to see you. What're you doing here?" came Tai Kamiya's surprised, but still jovial welcome, his immensely bushy hair reaching from one edge of the doorway to the other.

"Hey Tai." Izzy returned his fellow Digidestined's greeting hastily, forgetting to be surprised that Tai was so alert at nine in the morning, "Can I, uh… can I ask your opinion about something… privately."

Tai turned his head to one side, looking at Izzy on an angle.

"Um, OK, sure." Tai replied, a little taken aback. Izzy could understand as he barely ever asked anyone for advice and even more rarely from Tai.

Tai ushered Izzy inside the apartment. The Kamiya family residence was modest, having a small living area, an attached kitchen and three bedrooms, but Izzy liked its homely atmosphere, having visited it many times over the last several years. It reminded him a lot of his own apartment where he lived with his parents, only more crowed what with the extra child. As he looked around the family room, he saw Tai's younger sister sitting at the dining table with the phone pressed to her ear as she chatted animatedly into it.

"Hi Kari." Izzy called over to her, giving a small wave.

Kari smiled sweetly and waved back, but continued to hold the phone to her ear. Evidently there was someone on the other end of the line that was too important to put on hold, even for a few seconds.

"T.K.?" Izzy asked Tai bluntly.

"T.K." came the confirmation.

Tai led Izzy to the room he once shared with Kari. Six months prior, the older boy had entered his senior year of high school with fellow Digidestined Sora Takenouchi, who was also his girlfriend of a year, and Matt Ishida. At that time, his parents had seen fit for him to have a room to himself, leaving Kari to inhabit the guest room as the younger sibling. From all reports the arrangement worked out well as both were happy to have a bit more privacy from one another. But Izzy was concerned more with his own problem at that moment than he was with Kamiya family politics.

"So, what d'ya want to talk about." Tai asked, swivelling around and taking a seat on his bed while motioning for Izzy to sit down on his desk chair.

Picking up the small pile of school books and papers that lay messily on the chair and depositing them on the even untidier desk, Izzy parked himself on the seat, the cushion on it about as thin as a tea towel. Shifting uncomfortably, he stayed silent for a few moments, building up the courage to admit what he had come to say. Tai was visibly on tenterhooks as he leaned forward, eagerly awaiting what was to come.

"Well I…" Izzy began nervously, "I came to you because you have, er… you have some experience with this."

Tai just blinked, clueless as to what Izzy was talking about. Fidgeting uncomfortably again, the young genius pressed on.

"You went through a lot when you were working out how you could get together with Sora… and well-" Izzy explained slowly, but Tai caught on and interrupted him.

"Wait a minute Izzy. You have a crush on someone, don't you?" Tai said, grinning his head off at the potential gossip he had just gotten his hands on.

"Y-yeah." Izzy admitted, his cheeks reddening slightly.

Tai shot to his feet as fast as Izzy could blink and started air punching with his eyes squeezed tight and a grin reaching from ear to ear plastered on his face. Izzy just sat there looking utterly perplexed for the ten seconds it took for Tai to do his little dance and calm down again. When he finally slumped back down onto the bed, he said the one thing that Izzy dreaded to reveal, but that was the whole purpose of his visit.

"So who is it?" he asked, still grinning madly.

Izzy's answer was a mumble, lower than even he could hear.

"Come again?" Tai said, leaning further forward than he already was.

"M-Mimi." Izzy managed to say and this caused Tai's eyes to shoot open as wide as they could go and for the older boy to nearly fall forward onto his face.

"What!? Seriously!?" Tai exclaimed, his grin having been replaced by a jaw that was as close to the floor as it could go.

"Shhhhhhh!"

Izzy was embarrassed enough without having Tai shout all the newly revealed information to everyone in the apartment block, which would included T.K. Takaishi who was presumably still on the phone with Kari. From there it would spread to Matt, seeing as he and T.K. were brothers and then it would snowball on. Izzy shook his head furiously, trying to purge his mind of all the worst case scenarios. He wanted to keep this private until he knew what to do.

"I'd like to keep this between you and me for the time being, Tai, so please don't announce it to the whole neighbourhood." Izzy told him dryly, to which Tai chuckled in response.

"Sorry," he said, "I just really didn't see that coming. So… you and Mimi. When did this happen?"

Izzy stared silently in Tai's direction, but he was looking straight through his older friend and into a void in his own consciousness. He had never actually put it all in sequence before, never been able to fully understand it. But then that was why he was getting advice from Tai; he had tried to reason it all out before, but it had never worked.

"Izzy?" Tai prompted lightly.

"I- I don't really know where I should… how I can explain it." Izzy admitted, refocusing his eyes.

"Well from the beginning would be pretty obvious, I think." Tai said while he let out a small laugh, which only caused Izzy to grimace.

"Well… it was about a year ago…" Izzy recalled.

"Wait, this is when she first arrived back in Japan." Tai interjected, remembering the girl's return from the United States just over twelve months ago.

"Yeah…" Izzy confirmed, his recollections of that day becoming clearer by the second.

"So what was it that made everything click?" Tai asked, confusing Izzy a little.

"Um, what?"

"I mean what about her made you kinda… y'know, look at her that way?" Tai managed to explain, gesticulating randomly as he went.

Izzy had to stop and think at that. He remembered going home that day, after the reunion dinner that had been held upon her return, feeling incredibly distracted, which was unusual for him. His stomach felt like it was levitating inside his body, his heart was beating faster than normal and that night he had the most trouble sleeping since he had been in the Digital World. Most of all, though, he distinctly remembered the image of her bursting into his mind every five seconds, and no matter how much he tried to concentrate he could never seem to keep her out of his head. It scared him deeply at the time, as such an unwilling fixation was truly rare for him, and it had never concerned a person before.

Trying his hardest, Izzy wracked his brain, trying to remember exactly what had triggered such a reaction from him. After a minute or two he had recalled all he was able to. He looked up to see Tai waiting patiently for his response, which was strange to say the least.

"Ah, well the first thing I remember noticing… well she was so… so happy, I guess." Izzy recounted.

Mimi had been away, living in the United States for around four years. When she had returned, although she still insisted that she had loved America, it was like someone had breathed new life into her. They had all seen Mimi in the Digital World and on the odd occasion when she would return to Odaiba to visit, but when she had finally come back for good it was the difference between a hill and Mount Everest. She had been so bright and bubbly it was like she was a kid at Christmas on a constant sugar high. It was the first thing that had struck Izzy, as soon as he had laid eyes on her again at the airport that day.

"I don't really know how to explain it to you Tai, it was… infectious. It just hit me as soon as she walked into the arrivals area."

As Izzy looked back to Tai, he saw a thoroughly sceptical look on his face.

"So this all started because she was happy… right." he said, giving Izzy a strange look.

"What?" Izzy replied, thoroughly perplexed.

"Dude, there was more than that." Tai told him with a lopsided grin.

"More? I-"

"Izzy, when I knew I liked Sora it was more than just one thing that told me that." Tai explained, his expression whimsical and joyous as he seemed to be remembering something truly fantastic from his past.

"What d'you mean?" Izzy asked, both intrigued and surprised by Tai's reaction to his own recollections.

"Well it was practically everything about her," Tai said, but seeing Izzy's raised eyebrow he went into specifics, "I mean I loved how she was so playful, how she was so kind and caring. She was really sporty, her hair just fell so perfectly around her face, and he skin was so-"

"OK, I think I get the picture Tai." Izzy cut him off as he looked as though he was ready to rant for hours. After the couple had gone through their public 'lovey-dovey' stage for the first couple of months of their relationship, Izzy thought he had had just about as much as he could take of all that and he was in no mood to hear more of it.

"Ha, sorry." Tai said, grinning sheepishly and rubbing the back of his head, "Guess I got carried away. But what was it about Mimi? There must have been more."

Izzy returned to the depths of his memory, trying his hardest to extract what Tai wanted to hear. After a short while he came back with more.

"Well, she was really nice to me when she got back." Izzy remembered. Tai raised an eyebrow at that, so Izzy qualified his statement, "Not that she wasn't nice to me before, but you know how she kinda, um… how she never used to be… enthusiastic about talking to me since I'd always talk about computers and other technical things."

"But you still talk about all that stuff." Tai said blankly.

"That's what I mean. She didn't seem to be bothered by that anymore, it was a complete change. I just couldn't understand it." Izzy insisted.

"All right." Tai replied, "What else?"

"Ummm… well I guess I was really impressed by how much she knew. I mean, I never thought she was unintelligent, but it's like when she was in America… it was like a quantum leap." Izzy did his best to articulate it, but he was still met with a very strange look from Tai that he was unable to place. Izzy decided to move on.

"She was so confident, but not… not arrogant. She was really talkative." he continued on, recapturing Tai's attention, "Oh, and… umm."

"'And umm' what?" Tai prodded.

"Y'know…" Izzy mumbled embarrassedly, "she looked…"

Tai's eyes widened and he smirked. "Oh yeah, she was wearing…" he said, giving some rather awkward hand gestures.

"Yeah…" Izzy confirmed, remembering Mimi's designer attire from that day. If there was one benefit she had had while living in New York, it had been access to some of the highest end fashion anyone could get their hands on, and she of all people had an eye for it, plus she knew full well how to get the best look possible out of it.

"Yeah, that'll about do it." Tai stated, nodding his head as he continued to smirk, "Looks like you're human after all, Izzy."

Izzy was bright red as he looked away from his friend. He had hated to admit it, but he would have been blind not to notice how attractive she had looked to him back then. Even now, despite the fact she was not dressing to impress every day of the week, he was still taken aback at how beautiful she appeared to him. Compounded with the myriad of other things he liked about her, it was now becoming so much clearer to him why he felt the way he did. He was surprised that it had taken a meeting with Tai for everything to start to make sense.

"OK, so what're you gonna do about it?" Tai jumped in, surprising Izzy.

"What am I… ah, that's why I came to see you." Izzy replied, dumbstruck.

"Well, I'm going to put this in really simple terms for ya, Izzy." Tai told him, leaning in with a big grin still on his face, "You tell her and ask her out. Easy, right?"

"W-what?" Izzy spluttered, not able to believe what his friend was telling him, "B-but, you took ages when you were deciding what to do with Sora, a-and if I tell Mimi, well… look at her and look at me, she wouldn't-"

"Look Izzy, if you want to be anything more than friends with her then you'll have to say something. I took way longer than I should have to decide I liked Sora and I wish I'd done something sooner. Anyway, you're the guy after all." Tai stated matter-of-factly, folding his arms and nodding to himself.

"Why should that make any difference? Sora was the one that asked you out in the first place." Izzy pointed out, eliciting an embarrassed look from Tai.

"Heh heh, well I just got lucky, I guess. Outside of that, the world is screwed up, but that's just the way it is for the most part." Tai said, not looking Izzy directly in the eye until he had finished speaking.

"But girls ask guys out all the time. Why is it my responsibility?" Izzy demanded, losing sight of his own problem, trying to make a point.

"Well, I'm sure they do, but as Matt will surely tell you if you ask him, don't bet on it happening to you." Tai said flatly, continuing before Izzy could ask any Matt related questions, "And besides, from everything you've said, Mimi doesn't look like she's gonna be the one to do it, and that's assuming she feels the same way you do. It's up to you to make the first move."

"So that's it?" Izzy asked, a little disappointed, "And what if she doesn't feel the same way?"

"Then at least you'll know you tried. I wish there was more I could tell you, but that's it. There's really not that much else to it." Tai told him apologetically, but checked himself quickly, saying, "Oh, make sure you tell her in person though."

"Hmm, that was the one part I knew already." Izzy groaned.

"Look, why don't you come back here if and when you ask her out, and if she says yes I'll help you plan the date." Tai offered.

"If…" Izzy said, a little despondent.

He had expected more from Tai who, along with Sora, were the only friends of his who had ever held down a successful relationship that had lasted more than a couple of months. If that was all the guy who had laboured for almost two years, working up the courage to tell the girl he had feelings for how he felt, then Izzy really was not liking his chances. Sure Sora had beaten Tai to the punch, but it was on the very same occasion that Tai himself had planned to tell her. He had been certain that Tai would be able to give him some sort of strategy or something that could help him out. Instead, all he got was 'suck it up and tell her'.

"Don't worry Izzy, you'll do fine." Tai assured him as they walked towards the Kamiya's front door, seemingly reading his mind, "Just be up front and try not to speak gibberish when you tell her how you feel about her."

Giving a last wave to Kari, who somehow was still on the phone, Izzy stepped out of the apartment onto the landing. Farewelling Tai, he started his journey home thinking all the while, 'Why was life so hard sometimes?'


	2. Chapter 2: Is This Real?

**Here's chapter 2, hope you enjoy.**

**Also thanks to Koumi-Loc for reviewing (I address their ages in this chapter, but I did hint at it last time, what with Tai, Sora and Matt being high school seniors) and to DCLWLOKPR44424 for following and favouriting.**

Mimi Tachikawa waited restlessly in the booth by the window. Killing time was grating enough, but the fact she was on her own at the time made every little annoying detail stand out. There were couple of loud teenagers in the booth behind her, whose every word she could hear. Every so often, someone outside the window on the street would bump lightly into the glass right by her, making the lowest but most invasive echo she could think of. Most irritatingly, although her long brown hair was tied back, there was one stubborn strand that seemed to come loose and wave across the front of her face. She kept brushing it back, but it would always fall out again. Grumbling lightly, she turned to look at her surroundings.

It was a small, local coffee shop she had chosen for this meeting, and she was expecting her invitee to arrive at any moment. As she sat, watching the slow but steady stream of passers by on the other side of the glass, she took a small sip from her latte, savouring its warmth. While it had only just struck the meeting time that she had set, Mimi was rather anxious to see her friend. Plus she had pre-purchased another coffee and, on top of everything else, she was irritated by the possibility that it would go cold and end up being a waste of her money. Thankfully she did not have to wait much longer as a slim girl, about Mimi's age, with red-orange hair entered the shop, spotted her in the booth and came and sat opposite.

"Hey Mimi, thanks for ordering for me." Sora Takenouchi said with a smile, which Mimi readily returned.

"Thanks for coming Sora. Sorry to call you out at such late notice." she replied happily.

Sora waved her hand nonchalantly and insisted it was no problem. Before saying anything more, the redheaded girl took a long sip from the cup in front of her before setting it down and breathing out slowly.

"I really wish I was as much of a morning person as I was when I was eleven." Sora sighed, revealing a small trace of tiredness.

"But Sora, it's past midday right now." Mimi pointed out, puzzled.

"Yeah, but I had to get up at five this morning; my mother needed some help with the opening shift at the flower shop since her assistant called in sick last night." Sora explained, now stifling a yawn.

"Ohhhh, I see. Sorry." Mimi replied.

"Don't worry about it." Sora told her dismissively, again waving her hand, "Anyway, why is it you wanted to see me so urgently?"

Happy to be moving onto what she wanted to talk about, Mimi took another sip of her drink, cleared her throat and began.

"Well, the thing is… there's this guy I like, but I'm not really sure why." she said, hoping Sora would understand what she meant. The redhead, however, just blinked back at her.

"Wait, what? You don't know why you like him?" Sora queried, a little confused by Mimi's confession.

"Basically. I mean I know what I'm feeling… but it's just I don't know why it's over this particular guy… do you sorta get what I mean?" Mimi replied slowly, and after receiving a small nod from Sora she breathed a sigh of relief at not having to keep trying to explain herself.

"I think I get it." Sora said, regarding her friend with a knowing look, "So is it Matt, Joe or Izzy?"

"You see, to start wi- What!?" Mimi exclaimed after realising what Sora had just said, gaining a look from the other teenagers over the top of the booth.

"C'mon, which one of the three is it?" Sora posed her question again, but this time with a small laugh.

"Why do you think it's one of them?" Mimi asked suspiciously, still reeling from what her friend had said.

"Well, Davis, Ken, Cody and T.K. are all too young." Sora explained, adding with another laugh, "And of course Tai's taken."

"I know other guys!" Mimi insisted.

"Mimi, we all know other people, but all of us Digidestined hang out with each other the most." Sora told her, "Long story short, I'd be surprised if it wasn't one of those three."

Mimi just sat there looking indignant. "I have way more friends than that Sora."

"OK then, surprise me – who is it?" Sora prodded with a confident smile on her face.

Mimi just sighed, replying simply with, "Izzy."

Sora clapped her hands together and rubbed them against each other, grinning with her little victory.

"Yes, I win." she proclaimed proudly.

Mimi just sat there and took another sip of her coffee, before looking back at Sora.

"Are you going to help me now?" she asked evenly, wishing that Sora's little celebrations would cease, hopefully long before any her boyfriend would have had.

"Of course I will, why do you think I came here?" Sora asked, immediately sobering up, which put Mimi at ease, "So I get you're a little confused, but beyond that what's your problem?"

Mimi considered this for a moment. Did she not like the fact that it was Izzy she had developed these feelings for? No, it was something else. In all honesty, she was somewhat pleasantly surprised at herself that this had happened. Izzy was a smart, dependable young man and Mimi respected him greatly for that. But, she thought, when it came down to it, were these feelings for real? She had only stumbled onto these emotions a couple of months before, so they were still relatively fresh, almost too fresh for her liking.

"Well… I guess a part of it is that I don't know why it's him." Mimi voiced her thoughts, "I mean it's not that I think liking him is bad, but… look at the two of us. What do we have in common?"

"Every couple has differences Mimi. Look at me and Tai; he wouldn't touch a tennis racquet with a ten foot pole and I play all the time." Sora reasoned, before adding with a smug grin, "But that's probably just because he knows I'd mop the floor with him."

"Yeah, I know that Sora." Mimi replied, a little exasperated, "But I'm not looking at our differences, I'm trying to find similarities. I can't see any."

"Well, how long have you felt this way about him?" Sora asked simply.

"About two months. Why?" Mimi responded uncertainly.

"Then you can't have been looking very hard." Sora told her frankly.

Mimi was taken aback. She had been trying. She wanted to find something, but all she could see was Izzy and his seemingly all encompassing love of all things electronic, which failed to match her love of fashion. She no longer found his interests confusing or boring like she had used to, she even managed to hold a conversation with him on the subject every now and again; she supposed the fact that she was sixteen now and not ten had something to do with it. Still, even despite that she felt no more love for his hobbies than she ever had before. He had so many qualities she liked, but their interests and personalities were a world apart.

"Well let me help you out with this." Sora said, taking Mimi's silence as her cue to continue, "To start off with, the both of you care pretty darn deeply for your friends and family."

"C'mon Sora, I wouldn't be friends with him in the first place if he didn't care about his friends." Mimi scoffed, but Sora was not yet finished.

"You both prefer being indoors, both of you are into movies," she went on, "you both hate Mr Mori."

"Everyone in our grade hates Mr Mori." Mimi muttered as she cast her eyes down to her side, but Sora drew her attention back.

"Look Mimi, these are all small things, but they're there and there's a lot more of them. You can't just ignore the things you have in common because they aren't as obvious as your differences." Sora implored her.

Mimi frowned. She was grateful that Sora was putting in the effort to help her, but she wanted to be certain there was something realistic there. After all, this was completely different to being interested in some random; if that were the case then she would have no problem at all. Izzy was a long time friend and she was not prepared to go after him if she thought it would all end up in pieces after a couple of weeks.

"But what if it doesn't last, Sora? What if I'm just feeling this way now and it will be different after a few weeks?" Mimi argued, "If that happens then I'll have made things really awkward between me and him for nothing. And even if I keep feeling like this, if he doesn't like me back the same thing will happen."

Sora just stared at her with an unreadable expression. The silence stretched on for several moments and it began to make Mimi feel uneasy. The redhead had already been surprisingly blunt with her and Mimi was hoping for something other than more of the same. After a while, Sora spoke up.

"Alright, Mimi you've pretty much just given me everything in the 'teenage romance playbook'." Sora said, resting her head on her hands.

"Sora!" Mimi exclaimed, shocked that her friend would trivialise her problems like that.

"No, no, no, I didn't mean it like that." Sora assured her, raising her head and holding her hands up, "There's nothing wrong with thinking like that. I went through the exact same thing before me and Tai got together."

"Wait, so what are you saying?" Mimi asked, now totally confused.

"I mean that all of your doubts are pretty natural, especially because you've been friends with Izzy for so long." Sora explained.

"So what should I do?" Mimi replied.

"Well, not only is all of that natural, it's usually also completely bogus." Sora answered, giving her a confident smile, "If you want him, then go get him."

Mimi blinked. That was normally how she would do it, but Izzy was different. Could she really be that reckless with him? Should she not be more careful?

"Seriously? Just like that?" Mimi asked uncertainly.

"I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, Meems." Sora responded, still smiling confidently.

"I know, but… if this is, y'know, real, then I want it to be…" Mimi said, earning an understanding nod from her friend.

"I know, I was exactly the same way. But, the way I see it, even if this doesn't work out, which I'm sure it will, I'm pretty sure you can trust Izzy to be mature about this. He might be a little weirded out at first, but, if I know Izzy, he's not gonna let that ruin your friendship. He cares too much about his friends to lose one over something like this." the redhead told her.

"I guess." Mimi mumbled back.

"So basically, the real question is whether you trust yourself to be mature about this." Sora concluded, folding her arms and leaning back while looking at Mimi, expecting an answer.

Mimi thought to herself. Could she be grown up about this if it failed to work out? She had to admit, her track record was far from spotless, and at this time she was feeling stronger about Izzy than she had any other boy before. But all that was when she was younger, in her past; that was all from a different life. She was in Japan again, she had been back for a year and she wanted to get along with Izzy, no matter what.

"So…" Mimi breathed, "It'll be OK?"

"It'll be OK." Sora repeated with a warm smile.

"And you really think… me and him… we can work?" she asked tentatively.

"If you want it to work, then there's no reason it can't so long as you make an effort." Sora told her assuredly.

Mimi breathed out. She could do this. She did want this. She was sure of it.

"Alright… Thanks Sora, you've been a big help." Mimi said happily to her friend.

"The master is always willing to share her knowledge." Sora said jokingly, lowering her head in a mock bow.

"The master?" Mimi said, snickering.

"All who've been in a successful relationship for more than a year, raise their hands please." Sora announced jokingly, sticking her right hand straight up in the air.

"Touché." Mimi conceded, but still laughed heartily, "I guess this makes me your apprentice."

"I guess it does." Sora replied, now unable to stifle her own laughter.

Both girls were overtaken by fits of the giggles, and only after a good minute had passed did they manage to calm themselves down again.

"So, how are you gonna do this?" Sora asked eventually, wiping a tear from her eye after having laughed so hard.

Mimi took a second to consider it. She was pretty clear on what she wanted to do now. The only remaining questions were where, when and how. Although she had been very unsure of herself just a few minutes beforehand, it now only took her a short while to come to her answers.

"Well, today's Saturday, which means we'll still have tomorrow. All I need to do is arrange to meet Izzy tomorrow somewhere and, like you said, I'll go get him." Mimi announced with a growing confidence.

As she received a smile and a nod from Sora, her phone began to ring from inside her bag, its shrill tone breaking through the fabric and reverberating through the air inside the coffee shop.

"You really need to change that ringtone, it's got to be the most annoying thing I've ever heard." Sora quipped, squinting in discomfort as the phone continued to chime.

Mimi just stuck her tongue out at her friend and answered the call.

"Hello?"

"Mimi… uh, it's me Izzy." came a nervous sounding squeak from the other end of the line.

"Izzy?" Mimi said, surprised. Sora's eyebrows shot up at the mention of his name and she immediately began grinning and gesturing Mimi to make her move.

"Yeah… um, I was just calling to… to um…" Izzy stuttered.

"To um…?" Mimi pressed, curious as to what had him so flustered.

"Ah, is it alright if I talk to you about something… in person?" Izzy asked. Mimi could swear she heard his voice crack for a second.

"Sure…" Mimi replied, but, remembering what she was planning to ask him, added, "I actually have something to ask you in person as well."

"R-really?" came a rather shocked and strangled reply.

"Yeah." Mimi said cheerily, "How about we meet up tomorrow at, say, midday, aaaaaaat… the mall?"

There was silence, but after a few seconds came a very frantic reply.

"S-sure, that sounds g-great. I'll see you then." Izzy babbled before giving his farewell and hanging up. Mimi placed the phone back in her bag and looked over to Sora.

"Looks like Izzy just saved you some of the work." Sora cracked, leaning back in her seat with a smile on her face.

"Hmmm, I wonder why he was acting so weird." Mimi pondered.

"Was he?" Sora asked before shrugging, "I guess you'll find out tomorrow."

"I suppose so." Mimi said before finishing the last of her coffee and thinking about what was to happen the next day.


	3. Chapter 3: Preparations

**Merry Christmas and I hope all of my readers have a fantastic day. I haven't been disclaiming this story, but I'll just say I own nothing and all characters belong to Toei Animation (probably doesn't matter at all, but I like to be safe).**

**Thanks to DCLWLOKPR44424 for your enthusiastic review, I'm glad to know you enjoy the story's subject matter. Also to candified smile, thank you for following and with dialogue, I usually just try to play out the conversation in my head and word it as naturally as possible – thanks so much for your kind words.**

**Now onto the chapter.**

Izzy rose slowly from his slumber on Sunday morning. Normally he was quick to wake up, but that morning it was like his body did not want him to get out of bed, leaving the sanctuary of his sheets and doona. His feet hit the cool floor and he stood up, stretching his arms out and holding in a yawn. In a strange limbo between being asleep and awake, Izzy wandered his room slowly, taking in each object as he came to it, moving gradually towards full consciousness.

On his desk he saw his green laptop, the newest Pineapple Cambook which had replaced his old yellow one. Moving on, his tired, blurry eyes fell upon his digivice, before shifting over to a modest photo frame that housed one of his most important possessions. In it he saw the old Digidestined group and their Digimon, all smiling gleefully out at him. It was the photograph that had been taken just after the defeat of Apocalymon, during the first digital adventure. He felt a warm, fuzzy feeling begin to grow in his head as he looked at the old photo, now falling back, closer to a sleep state, a dull, tired grin spreading across his face.

Izzy was brought violently back to earth when his gaze locked with one particular person within the frame. Staring back at him was the ten year old Mimi Tachikawa, and his thoughts immediately jumped to her current day self and, with her, what Izzy had planned to do that day. He now realised why his body wanted to stay in bed, away from the world outside.

Izzy was fully alert now, his mind now kicked into overdrive. All the nerves he had felt as he had wrestled in his bed, trying to get to sleep the previous night had returned and he looked around crazily for something to tell him the time. Finally finding his watch, he was met with a terrifying sight. It was eight o'clock in the morning. He had four hours before he needed to meet Mimi at the mall. Four hours before he was going to tell this girl he liked her as much more than just a friend. Four hours before he would be either high on euphoria or brought to his knees by dejection.

He tried his best to think, to distract himself, to plan, to do anything but dwell on the utter terror he was feeling at what he had pledged to do at midday. No matter what he did, though, she refused to leave his mind. Images of her constantly arose, interrupting whatever tangent he had managed to get himself onto, and faint flickers of her voice cut across him as Izzy tried to mentally talk himself through what he planned to do.

He was so distracted that barely heard what his mother and father were saying to him as he sat poking at his cereal, which was slowly becoming soggy as it sat uneaten in the bowl in front of him. Izzy could only give his parents simple, automatic answers until he excused himself and proceeded to the bathroom to start getting ready.

Half an hour later, having showered, spent ten minutes making sure every hair on his head was in place and ensuring that his breath smelled ever so slightly of spearmint, Izzy exited the bathroom. Entering his bedroom, he picked up his watch again; nine o'clock. His heart beating slowly but heavily, like the booming beat of a massive drum, Izzy moved to his cupboard and tried to figure out what he was going to wear. After a while, agonising over whether it was too casual, or too formal, he settled on dark jeans and a red-brown, button-up short sleeve. After liberally spraying on deodorant and putting on his chosen clothes, Izzy seated himself gently on his bed, careful not to crease his outfit.

What was wrong with him, he wondered. He was never like this. He never worried too much about what he wore, or how he looked. He was so stressed and he had only woken up an hour and a half ago. As he fretfully checked his watch again, he uttered a single, pained phrase.

"What did you talk me into, Tai?"

* * *

Mimi had been out of bed since nine o'clock, a little earlier than usual for her on a weekend, and was standing in her room, still clad in cotton pajamas, staring intently at the five different outfits she had splayed across her bed. Running over in her mind was a constant train of thought about what she wanted to do that day and how best to achieve it.

Izzy was a modest person, she knew that all too well, and fashion had never been something that he paid that much attention to as far as she was aware. Nodding to herself, she ruled out her latest designer dress, hanging it neatly back in her closet. Mimi then also remembered the several times that Izzy had made some remarks about strangely coloured clothes. He never made a big deal of it, but Mimi still thought it was better to be safe and so discarded the lime green pants and violet blouse she had laid out. This left her with three more outfits.

Having trouble deciding out of her remaining options, Mimi decided she would go brush her teeth and put on her makeup. Normally a tedious process, Mimi was surprised at how quickly it had gone when she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, all ready to go, lacking only the right attire. She had been so caught up in planning out what she was going to say and do that it had all flown by.

Despite the fact that she had been so doubtful and hesitant the day before, Mimi could feel a pure, palpable excitement rushing through her veins. She had been in three relationships before, all lasting no longer than one or two months. Remembering how she felt about each boy, Mimi could see now that it was always much the same. It was always the cute face, or the smooth talk she had looked for before and, every time, she quickly became bored of whoever she was with. That was not to say she had disliked them, but there was just nothing special, nothing lasting, and maybe the culture difference had been a part of it, considering all three of them had been American.

With Izzy, after having talked with Sora, thought about it and slept on it, Mimi could see some big differences. For one, she had thrown herself into the other relationships straight away, but with Izzy she had held off. She had waited for weeks to see how her feelings developed, she had thought about it, and she had even talked to someone about it. The last one was especially odd because she was far more used to being the advice giver when it came to boys, Yolei being her top confidant.

Another big change was the fact that she was already friends with Izzy. She actually knew him enough to say that she could enjoy sharing his company, she knew, mostly, what he liked and disliked, and, most important with Izzy specifically, she knew that sometimes you just had to accept the fact that you were not going to understand a single word coming out of his mouth. That was where communication came in, she thought to herself, wagging her finger in the air and grinning madly. They were friends already, so she only had to keep building on the foundations, not start from scratch.

'Already friends'. Mimi's mind caught on those two words as they slipped through her thoughts. Bouncing back to her room, on account of her now pent up anticipation and energy, she finally landed on a decision as to what she wanted to wear. Izzy, as she could easily recall, while not being unusually shy, was easily the biggest introvert she knew, except for maybe Cody. He could fake confidence well enough around new people, but all of the Digidestined knew that, inside, he was incredibly timid and was really only comfortable around his friends. It was easy to see in the way he would keep conversation so general and generic around strangers, and as soon as he ran out of the basic questions he would always fall into silence, laugh a little awkwardly and search aimlessly for something else to say, only sometimes with success.

Mimi could only imagine that what she planned to tell him would blow his world right open. Despite their long friendship, at least since she had returned to Japan, Izzy had always been most withdrawn around her, and she had never really seen any reason to suspect that he had any interest in her. Consequently, she wanted to try to keep him in his comfort zone as much as possible, otherwise she would probably be left with a stammering, confused mess.

Picking up the middle of the three remaining outfits she had selected, she looked it over briefly. It was a simple ensemble, consisting of a plain, knee-length white skirt and a loose fitting blouse that was a faint peach in colour; easy, familiar, friendly. Putting it on, she admired herself in the mirror, nodding approvingly at what she saw. It all fit perfectly. Keep Izzy comfortable, drop the bombshell and go from there; that was her plan and now she felt dressed for the occasion.

Checking her clock, she saw it was half past eleven. Perfect, she thought. Picking out a matching pair of shoes, Mimi practically skipped out of her room, gave her parents each a kiss goodbye, and exited the apartment. As she stood waiting for the lift, humming merrily to herself, she ran over one of the nuggets of wisdom that Sora had given her the day before.

"If you want it to work, then there's no reason it can't so long as you make an effort."

* * *

"Hey you."

"Hey _you_." Tai replied as he greeted his girlfriend, who had just turned up at his door.

"Haha, so are you going to invite me in?" Sora replied cheerfully.

"No, what's wrong with my doorstep." Tai deadpanned, but was unable to hold off a smirk for more than half a second.

"Funny." Sora retorted, chuckling, as she placed her palm on Tai's face and gently pushed him backward into the Kamiya apartment.

When they made it to the living area Sora lowered her arm and Tai immediately swooped in and gave her a peck on the lips. Sora yelped, which was quickly followed by a giggle.

"You thief!" she exclaimed jokingly.

"What are you gonna do about it?" Tai teased as he lightly poked her arms with both of his index fingers, swiftly moving his arms about as she playfully tried to swat him away.

Sora just waited until Tai began to lose concentration, since he had started to laugh. After a few seconds she saw her opportunity and shot in toward him, stealing her own quick kiss.

"And now we're even." she told him with a smug smile as she folded her arms.

Tai did a mock bow and both the teens started laughing madly at themselves. They only stopped when they heard a voice come out from Kari's room.

"Get a room you two." T.K. called out as he and Kari stood grinning haughtily in the Kamiya girl's bedroom doorway.

Tai and Sora both pivoted to face the two onlookers. Sora smiled mischievously. They just walk right into these things, Sora thought to herself.

"Well perhaps we should take your lead T.K." Sora quipped, glancing at Tai, hoping he would play along, which he thankfully did.

"Yeah, it seems you and Kari have already gotten yourselves one." Tai remarked with a wicked grin on his face.

T.K. and Kari both instantly went red and retreated back into the girl's room, where Sora guessed they had been studying, which was a weekly affair for the two younger teens.

"I love doing that." Tai sighed and the couple started laughing again.

After a few more seconds they calmed down, Sora wiping a tear from her eye.

"Now, not that I have anything against my beautiful girlfriend showing up, but did you come over for a specific reason?" Tai asked, flashing a grin at Sora who just shook her head and chuckled.

"Nice one, Mr Smooth." she said, "But, now that you mention it, I have something to tell you."

"Oh, really?" Tai replied, interested.

"Mhmm." Sora nodded.

The redhead motioned to the couch where they both sat down, facing each other.

"I was talking to Mimi yesterday and guess what she told me." she said.

"It'd be really funny if she said she liked Izzy, since-" Tai started, but Sora cut across him.

"How the- There's no way you guessed that!" she exclaimed, looking wide eyed in surprise at her boyfriend.

"What, she did say that!?" Tai replied, just as shocked, "Izzy told me yesterday that he likes her!"

Sora blinked. Getting over the initial astonishment, she realised that this was great news. Any worry she had had that Mimi might get rejected was washed from her mind and her lips curved into a wide, relieved smile.

"Izzy said that? That's fantastic. I bet he came to you for…" Sora trailed off, her eyes narrowing at her boyfriend.

"What?" Tai said, confused.

"Knowing Izzy, I'll bet he told you to keep it private as well." she guessed, her tone falling close to disapproving.

"Y-yeah…" Tai admitted, before quickly adding, "But he knows I tell you everything, so I'm sure he won't mind. Plus he phoned me last night and said he was meeting Mimi today to ask her out, so it'll be public knowledge anyway."

Sora's mind instantly flipped back to the phone call that Mimi had received the day before when they were both in the coffee shop, completely forgetting her vexation at Tai's lack of respect for Izzy's wishes.

"Oh, so that's what Izzy called her about." Sora murmured.

"Wait, wait?" Tai asked, unsure of what she was talking about.

"Mimi and I met up and talked this over yesterday and she got a phone call from Izzy asking if he could speak with her about something." Sora explained, "In fact, Mimi was actually planning on asking Izzy out today."

"Hey, that'll be just like us." Tai pointed out, happy at the memory of a year ago.

"Ha, I don't know what you're talking about," Sora retorted, "I poured my heart out and you just sat there looking like you'd just beaten all the Dark Masters in one go."

"Geez, I was just so shocked and happy that a girl like you would be interested in a dummy like me." Tai said, putting on a bashful expression.

"I know." Sora laughed as she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek, "But you're my dummy."

"Well, let's just see who out of Mimi and Izzy ends up being the dummy." Tai said, smiling back at Sora.

"Izzy." came the joint chorus of T.K. and Kari, who had re-emerged from the latter's room.

Both Tai and Sora snapped towards the younger pair and groaned audibly.

"Please tell me you two didn't hear all that." Tai moaned, planting his palm over his face.

"Every adorable word." Kari replied with an all too sweet smile, which was mirrored eerily by T.K.

"Ba-rilliant." Tai sighed.

Sora just smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, like you said, it'll be public knowledge soon enough." she told him sympathetically.

"Not what I was referring to." Tai groaned, and Sora saw Kari's smile become even sicklier.

"Don't worry, my sweet older dummy, we won't tell too many people." the younger girl announced, placing both hands on top of her chocolate brown hair.

"Yeah, just Matt." T.K. offered.

"Oh, and Joe." Kari added.

"And Davis."

"Don't forget Yolei."

The younger pair kept rifling off names and laughing as they slowly made their way back into Kari's bedroom. Sora just sighed and placed an arm around the now sullen looking Tai.

"Well, look on the bright side, I'm sure Izzy and Mimi will be getting the same treatment soon enough."


	4. Chapter 4: A Nervous Breakthrough

**Here you are, chapter 4. Thank you to CelticMagic and TheAceOfSpades96 for following/favouriting. For the reviewers as well:**

**CelticMagic: You flatter me. I'm really glad you're enjoying the story so far.**

**Elite Beauty: Thanks for your numerous and supportive reviews. As to your request regarding the relationship between Mimi and Izzy, I can't say I planned to go into that much depth (I was going to go into it a little), but I might do an extra chapter or two once I get there. Wait and see.**

**Also thank you to DCLWLOKPR44424, Koumi-Loc and an unnamed guest for their reviews.**

Mimi walked leisurely down the rows of stores on the ground floor of Aqua City, Odaiba's main shopping mall. She had another five minutes before she had to meet Izzy, so she was taking her time, running a few different ways to word what she was going to say to him through her head. Occasionally there would be a clothing shop with a dress or a pair of shoes that would catch her eye, but today she managed to dismiss the temptation to take a closer look at them. In fact, she could barely focus on anything besides where she was going and what she planned to do.

Whenever any of the Digidestined met up at Aqua City, they would always have the food court as their initial meeting point. Checking the time on her phone, Mimi could see the time ticking closer and closer to midday, so she picked up her pace and headed towards the eatery.

As she made her way to her destination Mimi felt strangely calm, unperturbed by what she was going to do. It was not happiness that she was feeling, at least not purely, but a serenity of sorts. She knew and had accepted what she felt, what she wanted to do, and she was content to go through with it.

She found it odd, but she was not in the least bit worried, not about Izzy or about what he would say. Mimi was puzzled as to how this could be. Just the day before she had needed Sora's help just to set her feelings straight. Now, only twenty-four hours later, she was going to act on those feelings and she had no doubts or reservations to speak of. Mimi had no idea why, but, she thought, this was no time for soul searching; this was the time for action. Deciding to just chalk it up to her experience in pursuing guys, Mimi smiled contentedly to herself as she approached the food court.

* * *

Izzy stood up against the wall next to Aqua City's McDonald's, his back straight and all of his muscles tensed up, as if pulled taught by the strain in his mind. He never ate there if he could help it; in fact he tried to never go near the place. The smell was, at the same time, intoxicating and nauseating, and it made him uneasy. Still, the spot in which he stood gave the best vantage point to see anyone in the food court, given its central location.

Izzy had arrived some fifteen minutes early, not because he thought Mimi would arrive ahead of time, but because of some nagging feeling in the back of his head. He had no idea what it meant, but he was paranoid enough about how Mimi might react, so he wanted to leave as little to chance as he possibly could. He had charged his phone all night, even though he had done so the previous morning, he had brought a whole packet of mints along, despite the effort he had gone to that morning to ensure his breath smelled good, and he had arrived early, irrespective of the fact that there was no real need for him to have done so.

As he waited, Izzy sighed deeply. He rubbed his forehead gently, careful not to knock a single hair out of place. Usually when he was this stressed he would end up with a head splitting migraine. He could not afford that today, not when he needed to be thinking straight. Inside his head, Izzy felt a pressure growing, pushing on every inch of his skull. It was not painful, but he knew it well as the beginnings of a headache. He shut his eyes for a few seconds and took several deep breaths. Not now, he thought as he again massaged his temples.

Deciding the best thing to do would be to keep his mind off of the discomfort and try to block out the pain, Izzy reopened his eyes and scanned the food court. Everyone was a complete stranger to him. He saw no one he recognised in the throng of people before him. It was unusually crowded for a Sunday, he thought to himself as he watched the people mill about, talking, ordering food or showing their purchases to their companions.

As he observed the crowd, Izzy would every so often spot a young couple. Most looked to be a few years older than he was, but some were his age, and some even appeared to be one or two years younger. Izzy groaned as he saw each pairing. He tried not to be jealous of others, but as a teenager who had never experienced such a relationship, and having seen two of his friends share one so blissfully for over a year now, Izzy could not help but feel the smallest strain of envy break into his cognisant mind, an unwanted guest among his conscious thoughts. Today was his chance to change that.

He looked down to his watch and saw the minute and second hands make their last few monotonous ticks before they finally reached the twelve, meeting the hour hand at last. As if on cue, Izzy heard a call over from his left. He raised his eyes in a flash and was met by the sight of Mimi, making her way over to him at a quick pace.

His breath caught in his throat as she came closer. She was dressed simply; a light peach top and a plain white skirt. Even so, Izzy instantly started breathing faster and his body stiffened even further. He felt his confidence swiftly draining away, as if he had mentally sprung a leak and what little courage he had managed to muster was dribbling out of him.

In the space of just a few moments, Izzy experienced an avalanche of competing and contradicting thoughts. Was he dressed appropriately? Was his hair good enough? Was he standing right, or should he be slacker on his feet? Should he run, blurt it out straight away, or maybe even lie, tell her something else and put it off for another day? Above the deafening melee that was occurring inside his mind, one thought screamed louder than the rest. 'Say hello!' his brain screamed at him, and Izzy scrambled to oblige.

"H-hey Mimi." Izzy managed to say as he waved at her, barely able to stop his voice from breaking from sheer nervousness.

Mimi covered the last few metres between them and stood before him. She had a smile on her face that was as wide as her face would allow. Her attire, while simple, still made her look stunning to Izzy. She had not dressed up, he thought, but she still knew how to make just about any old set of clothes work when she put them on.

He just stood there, with no idea of what to do. He barely managed to return the hug she gave him, and he received an odd look from her light brown eyes after she withdrew. It was only then that he realised the completely blank expression he had been wearing, and he hastily replaced it with a forced, but no less happy smile, one which was just as quickly returned.

"How are you, Izzy?" Mimi asked, her tone light and bubbly.

"Uh, gre-great. I'm really good thanks. How are you?" he replied, instantly realising how strange he had sounded.

"Wow, that's good to hear." Mimi answered cheerfully, either not noticing or ignoring his awkwardness, "I guess I'm feeling pretty good too."

Izzy forced a laugh. He was not sure how it would have sounded to her, but to him it sounded convincing enough. Mimi carried on like nothing had happened, so he figured he was alright.

"So…" Mimi said, seemingly prompting him.

"Umm…" Izzy mumbled before remembering his whole reason for meeting her at Aqua City. Before he could say anything else, though, Mimi got to the point.

"You had something you wanted to talk about, right?" she offered, and Izzy instantly responded.

"Yeah, yeah right. Umm, yeah I do." he rambled, adding, "You had, ah- you had something you wanted to talk about as well, didn't you?"

Mimi just smiled sweetly and gave him a nod.

"Would you like to do it over lunch? There's a cool new café I passed just down that way." she suggested, pointing in the direction she had come from.

"Sure. Yeah, that'd be great." Izzy hurriedly agreed.

At that, the two Digidestined turned and headed where Mimi had indicated. Izzy, while doing his best to appear calm, was a complete mess inside. His mind was rushing at a dizzying speed. If his thoughts could have made a physical sound, then they would have been deafening. Through it all, he muttered something so low that only he could hear.

"How in this world am I going to do this?"

* * *

Mimi took another bite of her caesar salad as she and Izzy sat silently. They had chatted a little about nothing in particular while they had been ordering at the counter and before their meals had arrived. Izzy had even offered to pay for her lunch, but she had waved him off, insisting she could pay for herself. Once the plates were on the table, however, Izzy had fallen into silence. Mimi had wanted to jump right into her admissions, but whatever was keeping Izzy from talking was obviously eating him up inside, and her eagerness was overtaken by concern.

Izzy was not the most outgoing and talkative person in the world, but at that moment he seemed completely withdrawn, mentally and physically. He was hunched slightly over the table and he had not met her eye since they had started eating almost ten minutes before. Every so often he would also briefly run his hand across his forehead. From where she was sitting, she could not even see his face. Mimi also noted that, while he was dressed nicely, it really just looked forced. It was disconcerting to see since the whole reason she had come was to talk to him and all of a sudden he had pulled back into his shell for no apparent reason.

Mimi sighed and ate another forkful of her salad. As she chewed the mouthful of lettuce, bacon and bread chunks, she gazed over at the boy wearing a pensive expression. Something was bothering him, she was sure of that. He was the one who had actually arrange the meeting; she had picked the time and place, but he had been the instigator. He had even seemed, at least to her, like he was really quite anxious to get out whatever it was he had to say. Now, as he sat there in front of her, she thought he looked as though he specifically wanted to avoid talking. She had no idea what his problem was.

After another minute had passed, Mimi had had enough waiting and wondering. She was going to get him to talk if it meant she had to drag it out of him. Seeing him so quiet and unresponsive was unsettling and she had no intention of letting it continue.

"Izzy, is everything alright? You've been quiet for a little while now." Mimi probed gently, but still eager for a response.

For the first time since their meals had arrived, Izzy looked up and met her gaze. His face revealed very little, but Mimi could see something in his eyes. It was hard to make out, but she could swear what she saw in the black of his irises was fear. It was something she had not seen in him since they were in the Digital World all those years ago, and it shocked her to see it again now.

"I-I'm fine. It's just that… It's just I'm…" Izzy tried to explain but trailed off before he had finished his answer.

"What is it?" Mimi asked gently, trying to coax whatever she could out of him.

"I… I'm just trying to figure out what… what I want to say." he replied, his voice carrying a small tone of embarrassment.

This just confused an already bewildered Mimi. What could he have to say that was affecting him so much? If she was going to tell him what she wanted to, she needed him to be at ease, and the only way to do that, it seemed, was to get Izzy to say his part first.

"You can say it however you like, Izzy. It can't be that bad." Mimi told him supportively.

"I-I want to, but…" Izzy struggled to say, causing Mimi to try to coax more out of him.

"But what?"

"But… but I don't know what you'll say." Izzy admitted, shifting his eyes downwards again.

Mimi blinked. Was what he wanted to tell her shocking? Was it offensive? She shook her head. Mimi could not imagine anything like that coming from Izzy.

"I promise I won't freak out or anything. You can tell me, Izzy." she assured him.

Izzy sighed and, finally, started to say what he had come to tell her.

"Mimi, um… we've been friends… for a long time." Izzy began shakily, "A-and since you got back to Japan… I guess I see you a little differently."

Mimi's ears perked up at this. There were dozens of different ways he could have been using his last sentence, but, putting together his words and behaviour up to that point, she began to suspect exactly what he meant. Nevertheless, she let him continue, wanting to see if she was correct.

"We've spent, ah… we've spent a lot of time together in the past," he went on, "and, um… no that's not right, I…"

Through her concern for him, Mimi had to stifle a giggle. She had to admit to herself that, every time he stumbled on his words like that, she found it rather cute, especially since Izzy always seemed more flustered than anyone else she knew when he got to that stage.

"What I mean to say is, um… if you're not too busy… a-and if you want to, because you don't have to… that's just, ah…" Izzy kept stuttering.

At that point, Mimi had heard enough. Her suspicions had been more or less confirmed, she thought, and she was ecstatic to find out that she had been right. It was all making sense now. She had no need to make her own confession and request now; Izzy had solved that little problem for her. Not letting him mangle another word, Mimi silenced him with a single raised finger.

"Izzy, you're asking me out on a date." she stated matter-of-factly.

As soon as she said that Izzy's eyes bulged and she saw him begin to panic.

"I-I-I… it's… I-" he blabbered, but Mimi silenced him again.

"Izzy, I would love to go out with you." she told him, a wide smile quickly spreading across her face.

Quicker than Mimi could blink, Izzy's face morphed from petrified to completely dumbstruck. He seemed to have frozen in time, his eyes shiny like glass and his mouth locked open. Mimi just kept smiling at him and, after a few seconds, the boy finally managed to speak.

"Y-you would?" he said, his voice saturated with pure shock and disbelief.

"Yes I would." Mimi confirmed with a small laugh, "Does next Saturday suit you?"

All she received from him was a stiff nod, his face still holding its look of astonishment.

"Great!" she chirped gleefully, "Let me know what time you're coming to get me and what you want to do."

Mimi could not wipe the smile off of her face. She had never given much consideration to the idea that Izzy had liked her. It had not affected her planning, but knowing how he felt was uplifting nonetheless. She was almost levitating in her seat with all of her excitement.

Mimi took a second to decide what she should do next. There was nothing really left to be said, nothing they could not discuss later anyway. Taking another look at Izzy, she also considered, knowing Izzy as well as she did, that maybe it would be best to leave him to his thoughts. Being around her seemed to be knocking him off balance and, as cute as she found him like when he was so agitated, she knew it was far from a pleasant experience for him. Leaving there and then might not have been the most polite thing she could do, but, in the end, she decided it was best for Izzy to get his head straight.

Taking one last mouthful of her salad before rising from her seat, Mimi gave Izzy another happy smile.

"Thanks so much for lunch Izzy, I'll hear from you soon." Mimi said sweetly before turning to leave the cafe.

At first she only received another nod from him, but he quickly came crashing back to reality.

"Wait! ...umm, what… what did you want to talk about?" Izzy asked, at a complete loss for what was happening.

"We just covered it." Mimi replied simply, flashing him another smile before sauntering casually out of the café, leaving Izzy gaping like a fish out of water.

* * *

"Just pause it for a sec, Sora." Tai said irritably as he clambered to answer the phone that had rudely interrupted their movie session.

Vaulting over the back of the couch where he and Sora had been sitting, Tai quickly dashed over to the shelf where the phone sat, hoping to spend as little time as possible away from their movie.

"Hello, Kamiya residence, this is Tai." he stated unenthusiastically into the receiver.

"Tai, it's me Izzy." came the reply.

Tai almost fumbled the phone as his annoyance turned to excitement.

"Hey Izzy, so what happened?" Tai replied enthusiastically.

"I need your help."

"Help with what?"

"Planning a date…"


	5. Chapter 5: Secrets and Planning

**Sorry this chapter took a little longer, I was caught up with things over New Years. A happy 2013 to all my readers, by the way. To the reviewers:**

** candified smile: Thanks, praise with literary terms makes me feel even better than normal :)**

**Koumi-Loc: I know what you mean. When I watch anime today it's all subbed, but I grew up with the dubbed version of Digimon, so that's just how I see the characters. As for the mini skirt part, it's a fun idea but it might have been a bit contrary to Mimi's intentions.**

**Thanks also to DCLWLOKPR44424 for your review.**

"It's just I've never done this before, Tai. I don't know what to do or where to go." Izzy said downheartedly as Tai regarded him thoughtfully while sitting backwards on his desk chair.

It was Monday afternoon and the two boys had been there in Tai's room for half and hour now, trying to figure out where Izzy could take Mimi. Tai had kept his word and was enthusiastic in agreeing to help Izzy plan the date, but the redheaded boy was making it difficult. Tai had been making suggestions for what to do and Izzy had been shooting them down one by one. He was so picky that Tai was starting to lose his patience. He really wanted to help his friend out, but it was starting to get ridiculous.

"Izzy, I know this is hard for you, but that's why you have to trust me." Tai told him as calmly as he could, managing to hide his frustration, "You can't just block all of my ideas. You said it when you came to me on Saturday; I have experience in this area."

Izzy nodded slowly, his eyes cast down to the floor. Tai watched as he got up from where he was sitting on the bed and began to pace. Tai observed as he went back and forth in silence, his expression blank. After thirty seconds or so, Izzy stopped and turned to face Tai.

"Alright, just run me through it; how should I go about this?" he asked desperately.

Tai could sympathise. Early on, it had been nerve wracking enough for him to set up his dates with Sora. Knowing how much shyer Izzy was than him, he could only imagine how difficult he must have been finding it.

"You see, there's no magic rule here, Izzy." Tai explained, "Basically you just need to find something you both like and then add a few touches to it."

"A few… touches?" Izzy questioned, a confused look on his face.

"Well, you just have to make it more than two friends doing the same thing." Tai told him simply, only to receive a sceptical look.

"Tai, you do realise how incredibly vague that is, don't you?" Izzy asked, exasperated from how little he understood what his friend was trying to tell him.

Tai sighed deeply. He had never been the best at explaining things; that was usually Izzy's department. Now the tables had turned. He was trying to answer a question that, when he thought about it, did not really have a single answer. Still, he had promised Izzy that he would help and he had no plans to give up.

"Look, no matter how much I try to explain it, it's not gonna make much more sense than it already does." Tai said as calmly as he could, "You want to be closer to Mimi, so try to do that when you're doing whatever you decide to do on your date."

"Can I at least have some examples?" Izzy pleaded.

Tai groaned.

"I dunno. It depends on the person, I guess." he replied, frustrated, "Hold hands, open doors for her, walk her home…

He was floundering at that stage. Tai had just gotten along so naturally with Sora when they had started dating that he never really had to think about it so deeply. He had to admit that he should have expected this from Izzy, who wanted to know everything he could before he was comfortable, but he was just about at the end of his tether.

"That's it?" Izzy said, clearly disappointed, causing Tai's left eye to twitch.

"Izzy…" Tai muttered through gritted teeth.

The boy flinched, clearly having heard his tone. Tai instantly regretted it. He had not lost his temper, but his voice had been threatening enough. He made to apologise, but Izzy beat him to it.

"I'm sorry Tai… I just want this to go right; I don't want to mess this up." he said contritely.

Tai breathed deeply. He was supposed to be helping Izzy, not getting angry with him. He decided it would be better to move to a different topic, seeing as they were currently making little progress.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too Iz…" Tai replied, "Look, why don't we just focus on where you two will actually be going rather than all these little extras and everything else, OK?"

Izzy just nodded, obviously eager to get something done.

"Alright. I said before that you need to do something you both enjoy." Tai started off, returning to a measured tone, "So, what interests do you and Mimi share?"

"Ummm…"

"C'mon Izzy, you've been friends with her for how long now? You've got to have some ideas rolling around up there." Tai insisted, motioning towards his friend's head as he did.

Tai watched him start to fidget where he sat when he heard that, as Izzy was no doubt finding their discussion to be an uncomfortable one.

"Well… we both like movies I guess." Izzy suggested, but his voice was far from confident. Tai, however, was heartened by this.

"Perfect!" he exclaimed, "Movies and dinner it is then."

Izzy grimaced at those words.

"But Tai, that's so- so…" the younger Digidestined tried to say.

"What?" Tai queried.

"So generic and mundane, I can't just do that!" Izzy retorted, finishing his criticism.

"Why not? Do you have a better idea?" Tai demanded. It was the best and only idea they had had so far, and it was not all that bad.

"Well… no. But Tai, this needs to be special." Izzy protested, "Dinner and a movie is so dull."

"Izzy, that's the thing I was trying to explain to you." Tai replied. His frustration was rising again, but he kept it in check, "It doesn't matter where you actually go; you have to make it special. Besides, doing something crazy just wouldn't be you, and that's what you're trying to show her, isn't it?"

Izzy just fell back onto the bed, covering his face with his hands.

"Urgh, why is this so hard?" he mumbled through his fingers, but Tai still understood his words.

Leaning back, the older teen sighed. This would be a long afternoon.

* * *

"I don't believe it! Izzy asked you out!?" Yolei screamed with complete surprise.

"Yes, yes, Yolei. Now please lower your voice." Mimi requested gently, giving her younger friend an awkward smile and holding her palms out towards the purple haired Digidestined girl.

Yolei immediately restrained herself and blushed heavily, a small, sheepish grin appearing on her face.

"Sorry, I just can't believe Izzy would do that. I mean… it's Izzy." she replied embarrassedly.

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Mimi agreed with a laugh.

The two girls had finished school an hour before and were walking the local streets. Mimi, knowing how much Izzy valued privacy over personal matters, had not yet told anyone what had happened the day before. He had not asked her directly, but when she saw him in their home room before classes had begun, she had gotten the feeling that he was still a little shaken up over it all, so she had assured him that he could tell their friends when he was ready. However, Mimi could never have resisted the urge to let Yolei in on it.

"So, when is your little date then?" Yolei asked sweetly, flashing a smile that screamed 'gossip', to which Mimi rolled her eyes.

"It's on Saturday, and could you please keep this one to yourself Yolei." Mimi replied, starting to regret letting her younger friend know about Izzy.

"Keep this to myself!? Are you kidding!?" Yolei exclaimed disbelievingly, "I've got to tell Sora and Matt and Tai and Joe and everyone! They'll be so proud of him… and you of course."

Mimi flinched. Yolei was one of the most fun and exciting people to be around, at least that Mimi had ever met. But, apart from her tendency to be overenthusiastic about things, her one major downfall was her tendency to gossip. In truth it was like having a town crier for a friend, who would announce your secrets to the world as soon as you told her. Mimi had thought she could trust the girl to keep silent on this one thing, but now she was not so sure.

"Yolei please! I'm not asking you to keep this a secret forever, just until Izzy's comfortable letting people know." Mimi pleaded.

"Why? What's the worst that could happen to him?" Yolei asked nonchalantly.

"For starters, Matt and Tai are probably going to be giving him non-stop noogies." Mimi told her.

"Hmm, alright, that is a good point." Yolei replied thoughtfully, pushing her glasses back up her nose.

"Plus Sora knows already, so there's no point in telling her." Mimi added, but received a raised eyebrow from Yolei.

"Wait, you told Sora? And you do realise that if she knows, then Tai probably does as well." the purple haired girl said.

Mimi looked away from her friend. She had texted Sora as soon as she had left her meet up with Izzy and had received a congratulations in reply. She had not considered that Sora would tell Tai. She knew they shared everything, but she had assumed that Sora would think to keep this to herself. She had not asked the redhead to, and personally she did not care, but she had thought that Sora would have treated it as a private matter. Now that she thought about it, though, she could only think that Tai was now well aware of what was happening between her and Izzy.

But then something else occurred to Mimi. All day, Tai had not acted like he knew anything. All of the Digidestined that attended high school normally caught up during their lunch breaks if they did not have anything else on. That day, the entire high school crew of Tai, Matt, Sora, Yolei, Izzy and herself had all been present. During that entire time, Tai had not acted any differently toward Izzy, which begged the question; did Tai really know, and if he did, why was he not showing it? But, then again, why did it make a difference?

Mimi cast her doubts from her mind. Either Tai did not know, or he had somehow built up the restraint, possibly thanks to the watchful eye of Sora, not to embarrass Izzy in public. It was not something she needed to worry about. Through her musings, she could hear Yolei trying to get her attention again. Resurfacing from her thoughts, she turned back to face the purple haired Digidestined.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it Yolei. If Tai does anything to Izzy I'll make sure Sora dishes out some punishment" she assured her friend with a smile.

"Seriously?" Yolei replied, a little taken aback by Mimi's lack of concern.

"Yep." Mimi said, but narrowed her eyes as she added, "And you can guess what'll happen if you go blabbing, can't you?"

Yolei moved a few inches further apart from Mimi as they kept walking, a scared, wobbly smile appearing on her face.

"I'll be good." she said weakly.

Mimi just beamed cheerfully back at her.

"Wow, if you care about him that much, I'm surprised you didn't ask him out yourself." Yolei commented.

"Well he never gave me the chance." Mimi said before thinking, and quickly received a squeal from Yolei.

"You were going to!? That's so cute!" the purple haired girl carried on.

Mimi grimaced, but, after a few seconds, she shrugged instead.

"I'd probably act the same way if it was her." she sighed quietly to herself as Yolei began demanding details of everything, from what she felt to what she had planned to do the previous day.

* * *

Izzy bade Tai a quick goodbye as he exited the Kamiya apartment and began to head home. His mind was abuzz with so many thoughts it was as if one million versions of himself were all talking at once. He shrugged them all off as he took the stairs down to the ground floor and walked out onto the footpath.

The sun was still shining in the sky and, as he checked his watch, Izzy saw that it had only just hit half past four. He and Tai had talked for well over an hour after they had arrived at his home after school. For most of that time it had seemed like they were getting nowhere and it had been an incredibly strange and confusing time. Eventually, however, things had started to make a little more sense and, while Izzy had wanted something a little more inspired, he had caved in and taken Tai's suggestions.

He had wanted to be creative, but in the end he could not see any other option. Izzy felt that he just had to accept that all of it was beyond him. Tai had assured him he could change his plans at any time if he thought of anything, but the younger Digidestined could not even begin to think of anything that even approached a good idea.

Izzy felt useless. He was used to being able to find the answer, to getting results, but now he was totally out of his depth. He frowned as he continued to trudge home. He wanted his first experience to be a success. He detested the very idea that he could mess it all up and return home in failure. He had not fixated on Mimi for a year just to botch everything on the first date, just as he left the start line.

Even so, Izzy was well aware of his own limitations, of what he knew how to do and what was completely foreign to him. His self-awareness did not breed any great confidence in him. All it did was create a well in the pit of his stomach, where all his fear, frustration, anxiety and doubt pooled together in a swirling mass of negativity.

He still had more than half a week to go before Saturday evening arrived, but, as he walked home with the sun to his back, it seemed like no more than a heartbeat away.

* * *

"Hey!"

"Hey little bro!" Matt replied as he gave T.K. a one armed hug in the doorway of their father's apartment.

"Sorry I forgot to call yesterday." T.K. apologised as they walked in to where Matt was preparing to make dinner.

"Yeah, where were you all weekend?" Matt asked, a tiny sense of worry escaping from under his cool, calm persona, "You know I like to keep in touch when you're at Mum's"

T.K. shook his head and smiled to himself. Despite everything he tried to be on the outside, his older brother was as soft on the inside as anyone he had ever met.

"I would have, but I was working on a science project with Kari all weekend and I was exhausted by the time I got home both days." he explained, but received a sly smile from Matt.

"Oh I bet you were." his brother teased, lightly punching him in the arm.

"Shut up, I get enough of that from Tai and Sora while I'm over there." T.K. said, but still managed to laugh at Matt's taunting.

"Well you two don't exactly make it hard for us to rip on the both of you." Matt pointed out with a grin.

"I guess not." T.K. sighed.

As Matt went into the kitchen area, T.K. flopped down onto the couch and switched on the television. Their father would not be back until late, which was normal for a Monday. The brothers did not mind too much as it gave them a chance to talk one on one, something both of them cherished as they did not live together for half of the week, and both attended different schools owing to their age difference.

"So what news have you got?" Matt asked casually from his position by the stove as he waited for some water to boil.

"Not much." T.K. said before thinking, but then remembered something he had heard the previous day. "Actually, Kari and I did overhear a couple of things from Tai and Sora while I was over at the Kamiya's."

"Really? What?" Matt replied, leaving his post in the kitchen and leaning intently on the back of the couch where T.K. was lying. Looking up at his brother, the younger boy grinned.

"You're gonna love this."


	6. Chapter 6: What Are Friends For?

**Hey everyone. This chapter is mostly Izzy content, but Mimi will be more prominent in the next chapter. Thanks to JyouraSorato for favouriting, and to the reviewers:**

**Koumi-Loc: I don't hate the dub names, that's just how I recognise the characters. I know he is originally called Koushiro, but to me he'll always be Izzy. Sorry if it's annoying, but that's just what I feel most comfortable writing.**

** Candified Smile: Thanks, and that's what friends are for :)**

**Celtie: T.K. is one of my favourite characters, and I always like writing dialogue for him.**

**TheAceOfSpades96: Thanks so much. They will interact a lot more in another chapters time (one after next).**

**JyouraSorato: I'm not a Koumi fan per se, like I am of Taiora (I wasn't 'on the internet' when the shipping war was really raging) and Takari, but I do like the idea of it. I personally can't stand Sorato, but I just stay away from it because I don't see any use in harassing other people who are fans of such a great franchise but just like different pairing.**

**Also thanks to DCLWLOKPR44424 for leaving a review.**

Izzy walked slowly toward the bench where he met the high school Digidestined every day. The time had just arrived at half past ten and the students had been, mercifully, released from class for their morning break. Izzy had just left his physics class, which he enjoyed enough to not be among the scrabbling mob rushing out the door as soon as the bell rang. Nevertheless, he still felt good to be outside in the open air.  
As he approached their meeting point, he saw that Matt and Yolei were already there. From what he could see at a distance, Yolei seemed to be telling Matt something while he was eating a sandwich. The Digidestined of Friendship had half of the sandwich hanging out his mouth as he listened, and Izzy saw him start to struggle as whatever the purple haired girl was saying to him caused him to laugh. Just before they spotted him, Matt swallowed the last of his lunch and leaned over to Yolei, telling her something with a wide grin on his face. Her reaction was to do a double-take and rifle off a few sentences, which Izzy could hear but was too far away to understand.

After Matt gave out a quick laugh, his eyes fell on the young genius and waved him over to them. Izzy smiled and quickened his pace, but he could not help but think that there was something in the older boy's expression that he did not like. He shrugged it off after a second, though, as he arrived beside his two friends and took a seat.

"Morning you two." Izzy greeted them both warmly, which was quickly reciprocated by both of them.

Thinking to what he had seen a few moments before, he felt his curiosity begin to rise, especially when he noticed the way that Matt kept grinning at him.

"I saw you nearly choke to death just before." Izzy remarked casually to the blond, causing Yolei to let out a small giggle, "What was so funny?"

Interestingly, Matt glanced over at Yolei, and as Izzy looked back and forth between them he noticed that both now had menacing looking smirks spread across their faces.

"Um, guys?" Izzy prodded carefully, having a distinct feeling he was not going to like the answer to his question.

"Oh, just that a couple of little birds let us in on a secret." Yolei replied vaguely, her voice light and so overly innocent that it was obvious she was putting it on.

Izzy started to develop a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he heard that. He was hoping it was not the secret he was thinking of, as he still wanted to keep it to himself and to the people he had told, at least for the time being. His hopes were, unfortunately, dashed by Matt's next words.

"Yeah, we hear that you're quite the ladies man, Izzy." Matt said, his eyes gleaming with mirth, "Mimi's gonna have her hands full with you, I'm sure."

Izzy hung his head in embarrassment. He had hoped to avoid this for a few more days, but that little dream was dead in the water now. At least it was only these two though, Izzy thought.

"Aww, don't be like that. I think it's so cute!" Yolei chimed, pinching his cheek and grinning enthusiastically at him. Matt was not so lenient.

"And to think, our little Izzy actually had it in him to do something like this." Matt announced jovially, as he roughly grabbed the redheaded boy around the shoulders and began to brutally drag his knuckles across Izzy's skull in one of the hardest noogies he had experienced in a long while, "Here I was thinking you'd marry a computer."

Izzy had expected this. He knew Matt was only joking around, but that did not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that he liked it.

Izzy was caught between his two friends, who were both laying into him as much as they could before anyone else arrived there. He could sense a weight at the bottom of his chest that he usually experienced when he was feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed, which also caused him to unconsciously draw his limbs closer to his torso. His legs lifted, his feet leaving the ground, and his arms drew in against his chest. He was trying to curl up like a baby, but being a sixteen year old being pressed from both sides by a pair of teasing friends made doing that practically impossible, and to an observer it would have looked like Izzy was going to stamp his feet and throw a temper tantrum. He shuddered to think that this was just the beginning.

Izzy was pretty sure that all the others who were at high school already knew, although he was not sure about Sora. However, once Sora and Tai, the latter in particular, found out that it was now all in the open, they could very well decide to join the two he was stuck with now in teasing him to no end. Tai, in typical fashion, had made one or two digs at him during their talk the day before, and if Sora did indeed know, which would not surprise him, Izzy had no doubt that she would have done so as well when he was not around.

For the next sixty seconds, the Digidestined of Knowledge did his best to scan around for any sign of salvation from the two-pronged assault he was currently trying and failing to defend against. As good fortune would have it, he heard the sweetest voice call out from behind them.

"What are you two doing to Izzy?" Mimi asked warily, placing her hands on her hips as she came into view, "Yolei, you didn't do what I told you not to, did you?"

"I didn't say a word." the younger girl replied defensively, but still with a sense of cheer in her voice, "Matt already knew."

Mimi glanced questioningly over at the blond, who just grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

"T.K. did a bit of eavesdropping on Tai and Sora over the weekend." he revealed coolly.

"I knew we couldn't trust him." came Tai's voice.

The group looked to their left to see the bushy haired teen approaching them with Sora, both of whom were looking a little discomfited, no doubt from finding out that their carelessness had been taken advantage of.

"Hey look, it's Sora and her dummy." Matt proclaimed while snickering.

Izzy, as well as Mimi and Yolei all looked over at Matt, puzzled at what he had meant. But, as he shifted his gaze to Tai and Sora, he could see an awkward expression forming on the girl's face, while her boyfriend turned a light shade of red, his right eye twitching with what Izzy guessed was annoyance.

"I was gonna spare him, but now T.K. is so dead." Tai muttered loud enough for them all to hear.

Izzy and, from what he could tell, Yolei and Mimi still had no idea what the 'dummy' reference was all about, but Matt just laughed.

"And lose me my man on the inside? I don't think so." The blond retorted with a light chuckle.

While Tai fumed and Matt continued to laugh, Izzy glanced at Yolei and Mimi, who now both sat side by side. All he got was a shrug from both of them.

Before he could ask what all the fuss was about, Izzy felt someone clasp his shoulder and he spun his head to see Matt grinning at him again. All Izzy could do was laugh nervously at what he knew was coming next.

* * *

Izzy sat exhausted in the computer chair, only half paying attention to what the other students were doing. As president of the computer club, it was his responsibility to oversee the afternoon meetings, set events and activities, among other administrative duties that most would consider horrendously boring. Normally, Izzy would take his duties with an almost unusual level of passion, given his enthusiasm for technology and all things electronic. That afternoon, however, he had decided to just let the other members play around with whatever programs they wanted and have fun; he was far too distracted to organise anything more than that.

He sensed that someone had silently taken a seat next to him, and he had no trouble in guessing who it was. Swivelling his chair around, he came face to face with Yolei, the only other Digidestined in the computer club, who was regarding him thoughtfully from behind her characteristically large glasses. Izzy remembered Davis saying once, as was his style, that the only thing bigger than those lenses was her mouth, which without saying earned the spiky haired boy a swift smack over the back of the head from Yolei. Right now, all her spectacles did was to make it seem like she was staring right through him.

Izzy kept his mouth shut. He knew what was on her mind, but he was in no mood to discuss it with her. She was only going to tell him something he already knew, anyway.

"You know we were just joking today, right?" Yolei said, as Izzy had predicted.

The young genius was well aware that his friends would never intentionally try to offend him, no matter what. Their teasing earlier that day, particularly that of Matt, had actually been tame compared to what Izzy had feared he might get. In fact, it had really only been Matt and Yolei that had actually done anything major. Tai and Sora had mainly stayed on the sidelines all day, at most throwing in a few comments. He guessed from the way they were acting that they were probably feeling a little guilty over their carelessness in letting the cat out of the bag. Mimi, of course, had been as much a victim as Izzy, but she had mostly just had to deal with Yolei fawning over their upcoming date. Still, knowing it was meant as fun did little to ease Izzy's nerves during it all.

"Izzy?" Yolei probed, drawing a reluctant response from him. If he could tell her what she wanted to hear, maybe she would let it be.

"Yeah I know." he told her simply, his lack of enthusiasm readily apparent.

"Really, because it doesn't sound like you do." the girl replied with a worried look.

Izzy sighed. He really did not want to talk about it, and he knew everything she was likely to say. Besides, his issue was not really with his friends.

"Look, you don't have to be sorry or anything. You guys are fine." Izzy said, hoping that would be enough to allay her concerns.

"Then why are you so distant?" Yolei pressed, showing no intention of dropping the matter, "I can't remember the last time you didn't have something for all of us to do at a meeting."

"Like I said, Yolei, I know it was all a joke." Izzy replied stubbornly, but much to his dismay she was having none of it.

"Then what's your problem?" she asked bluntly, but still wearing a worried expression.

Izzy let out a restrained groaned. Evasion was not going to solve this, he decided.

"Well, just because it's a joke, doesn't mean I enjoy it." he told her flatly.

"I know that, Izzy, but normally you don't mind so much." she responded.

"This… this is different." he retorted, "I don't feel the same about this."

"Wait, what is that supposed to mean." Yolei queried, now looking confused.

"I…" he began, but stopped himself.

It had been gnawing at Izzy all day, since the previous afternoon in fact. He was not feeling how he thought he should be. He felt himself constantly worrying about what his friends would do, what they would say about him and Mimi, so much so that he had trouble sleeping the night before. Other people's opinions never usually bothered him all that much. Normally he would take heed of them, but rarely ever were they something that kept him awake at night. Like other things recently, this was a fairly new and uncomfortable experience for the Digidestined of Knowledge.

"I mean I don't want to care but I do." Izzy blurted out, but still keeping his voice at conversational level so as not to attract the attention of any other club members.

"Huh?" Yolei said blankly.

"Yolei, I should be on top of the world right now." Izzy said, doing his best to explain, "I just asked Mimi out after having waited an entire year and all I can do is worry myself over what harmless jokes you guys'll have at my… at our expense."

Yolei cast her gaze downward slightly, not replying at first. She seemed as though she was giving what he just said some serious thought, furrowing her brow and bringing her hand to her chin as she sat in temporary silence. After a few short moments, however, she smiled warmly and shifted her eyes back up to meet his.

"Well in that case, Izzy I want you to know that we're all really happy for you and Mimi" she proclaimed out of the blue, catching him by surprise.  
"Um… what?" he questioned, puzzled as to why she blurted out her congratulations all of a sudden.

"If it makes you uncomfortable, I'll make sure we won't tease you about it." Yolei said reassuringly, smiling and cocking her head to the side, "You just focus on Mimi; she deserves your full attention, plus I think you'll be happiest that way."

Izzy just stared at her. Of all the things she could have said to him, what he had just heard was not something that he had even remotely considered. He was touched that she was willing to tell him all of that, but the teasing was never really the core of the problem.

Seemingly reading his mind, Yolei added more to her reassurances.

"It's up to you to work out your self-consciousness and everything, but keep in mind we're supporting you all the way." she told him with a smile. "And you don't have to defend her, Izzy. Mimi's a big girl, you just focus on getting everything right up there." she added kindly, leaning over and lightly tapping his forehead with her index finger.

At least she was not sugar coating it for him. It was still his problem, but it was comforting to be told how much his friends cared, even if he already knew that deep down.

"Thanks Yolei." Izzy said, managing a small smile.

"No problem." she replied brightly, "But hurry up though, we've got to get back to making fun of you at some point."

Izzy sighed, shaking his head. Yolei continued to smile at him, and quickly added.

"What are friends for, after all?"


	7. Chapter 7: Parental Guidance

**Here we are, chapter 7. To the reviewers:**

**TheAceOfSpades96: Thanks a lot, even though this fic is primarily about Mimi and Izzy (and secondarily about Tai and Sora) I wanted to include some of the other Digidestined as much as possible.**

**Candified Smile: I'm trying to improve my character description and development in stories, so thanks for your kind words they mean a lot.**

**Koumi-Loc: Well I hope I can do the Koumi community proud with this fic once it's done.**

"So I'll pick you up from your apartment tomorrow at six thirty?"

"Yeah, six thirty sounds great. See you then."

Izzy said his goodbyes and hung up the phone. Everything was set now; he had a time and a place and now that he had told Mimi it was only a matter of time before it all began.

It was Friday evening and the young genius had been putting off informing her for a couple of days now, every day feeling the weight on his shoulders to hurry up and organise the date. Now that he had done it, though, the pressure seemed to have become so much greater. As he thought about the next day, Izzy could feel only nervousness and dread, with none of the elation he had both expected and hoped for.

Flopping down on the living room couch, he placed his hands on top of his head before laying back and sighing deeply. Why was he feeling so down, he wondered. It was just the same as he had told Yolei three days ago; he should be on top of the world, but all he was doing was worrying. At first it had been about what his friends would say about him and about Mimi, but as the joking had subsided his doubts and fears had turned to the date itself.

He had waited so long to just ask her out, crippled by his own insecurity, but now that he had finally done it a whole host of new concerns had emerged like monsters from out of the mists of his subconscious. Was he taking her to the right place? Was she going to be bored while out with him? Did she like him enough for this to be more than a one off thing? Was he good enough for her?

All his fears had even gone so far as to affect his interaction with Mimi at school as well. Typically, he would be shy but still more than happy to talk to her. Ever since Sunday, however, he had not been able to interact with her without his throat seizing up, or turning away from her just so he could avoid a panic attack. Each and every day when he got home he would lie down on his bed and spend a good part of the afternoon cursing himself for acting like he did. Even so, without fail, the next day would bring more of the same. Izzy shook his head and groaned quietly to himself. The more he thought about it, the more he felt like he was going to throw up.

"Izzy, dear, who were you talking to on the phone?" came a soft and curious voice from behind him, causing him to jolt in his seat, "Are you going somewhere tomorrow?"

Izzy swivelled around on the couch to see his mother, Yoshie, standing not far behind, her face bearing a warm smile as she eyed her son inquisitively.

He had not told his parents about Mimi yet. He had not stayed silent with them for any particular reason, but something inside had kept nagging him, compelling him to keep his date a secret. He was unsure as to what it was that was holding him back, whether it was embarrassment or something else entirely. Regardless, now that he was being asked point blank by his mother there was no way for him to continue hiding it.

"Ah, I… I'm going to the movies, Mum." Izzy told her surreptitiously, still feeling the unconscious tug in his mind.

"Oh, with who?" Yoshie replied.

"With, um… with Mimi." Izzy revealed, averting his eyes from his mother and subconsciously rubbing the back of his head with his right hand.

"Is anyone else going?" his mother asked.

If Izzy had looked up, he would have seen the faintest flash of suspicion in his mother's face.

"N-no… just the two of us." Izzy told her, still not looking her in the eye.

"Izzy, your little outing with Mimi wouldn't happen to be a date would it?" Yoshie questioned, and the boy felt a knot tighten in his stomach.

"… Yeah." was all he could say.

At first there was no reply, which made Izzy uneasy. The silence was as suffocating as the words he had just forced himself to speak. Unable to keep looking away, Izzy looked up again and saw that his mother's lips were still curved into a smile, but now it had softened, and her eyes sparkled with something as she looked back at him.

"Izzy, that's wonderful. I'm so glad to hear that." Yoshie said.

Before Izzy could say or do anything else, his mother came over, leaned over the back of the couch and lightly embraced him, her long brown hair falling awkwardly over his face.

"You're growing up so fast." she whispered, and Izzy had the distinct feeling she was not talking to him.

"Mum…" Izzy whined a little, not knowing what else to say.

"Dear, you're embarrassing the boy." came the jovial voice of Izzy's father, Masami, who had just walked in from the study.

The man had a rolled up newspaper in his hands and what Izzy took to be a proud smile spread across his face. Yoshie let go of her son and stepped back to stand beside her husband. Both of Izzy's parents beamed at him and Izzy felt himself going red. They had always been supportive of him as a child, and now that he was a teenager he could see that this had not changed in the slightest.

"Congratulations son. I'm so proud that you finally plucked up the courage to ask Mimi out." Masami told him warmly.

Izzy could not help but grin at that, but then he realised something veiled in his father's words.

"Wait, 'finally'? You knew I liked her?" Izzy asked incredulously, standing up from where he had been on the couch.

Both of his parents glanced at each other for a split second before his mother answered him.

"Well, you're so close to all of your Digidestined friends and you hang around with them so often. I guess we just figured you would go after one of the girls sooner or later." she admitted, smiling at him.

So his parents could figure him out more easily than he had given them credit for, Izzy thought. He had assumed that because the fact he liked Mimi was such a shock to Tai and the others that no one else would have even suspected it. But it seemed that, while his mother and father had not been spot on, they were more intuitive than he had thought. But, when he considered it, they had always been able to sense when something was happening with him. Back in the day, while they had no chance of knowing the Digimon existed, they still knew that something had changed and had noticed his change in behaviour.

"C'mon, let's give him some space for now." Masami suggested to his wife, who quickly nodded.

Izzy's parents retired to the study, leaving Izzy standing in the living area, completely lost for words. The past week had already been full of surprises and he was beginning to wonder just how many more he could take before keeling over.

Gently taking a seat back on the couch, Izzy wondered why he had ever been reluctant to tell his parents about Mimi. They had always been behind him with whatever he wanted to do, and there was never any reason to think they would be anything else but happy for him to be spreading his social wings even wider.

Izzy felt another uncontrollable grin form on his face as he sat there. He had to try to remember from then on just how lucky he was to have parents like his.

* * *

"What's at six thirty tomorrow, sweety?" Satoe Tachikawa asked her daughter as she hung up the phone.

"Izzy's taking me out to see a movie and then we're going for dinner." Mimi told her happily, smiling to herself.

"Izzy? Oh, he's such a nice boy. Much nicer than that Derek character you used to see." her mother mused out loud, the latter sentence causing Mimi to flinch.

"Yeah, well that was-" Mimi tried to say, but her mother, oblivious to the fact that her child was speaking, continued her ruminations.

"Mmmm, or that boy Samuel. Yes, I never really liked him that much either." Satoe pondered to herself.

Mimi grimaced. Her mother was incredibly sweet, but her tendency to get lost in thought had proven to be most annoying on more than a few occasions. She was embarrassed to think that she was guilty of doing the exact same thing sometimes, seemingly having inherited the habit. But, as absent minded as Mimi could sometimes be, she was nothing like her mother, or at least not now, her younger self being a different story entirely.

After a good thirty seconds of Satoe vocalising her thoughts on her daughter's past relationships, Mimi decided that it was about time she brought her back to reality.

"Mum, as interesting as it might be, can you stop talking about my exes, please?" Mimi implored.

Satoe blinked for a moment and then smiled.

"Oh, sorry pumpkin. You know how I get carried away sometimes." she said and Mimi shook her head.

It was annoying, but it just would not be her mother if she acted any different.

"What's this I hear? Is someone taking my darling daughter out tomorrow night?"

The overly dramatic voice of Mimi's father, Keisuke, filled the living room as he strode in from the kitchen with a half eaten brownie in hand.

"Dad, don't-" Mimi began, but her mother cut her off again.

"Yes, little Izzy Izumi is taking her on a date tomorrow." Satoe said enthusiastically, strangely catching Keisuke by surprise.

"Izzy? Really? I always though that it would be that Ishida boy." he revealed, making Mimi do a double-take where she stood.

"Yes, he's a handsome young man." Satoe agreed, "And I always though that Joe Kido would be good for Mimi."

Mimi had her mouth hanging open and she felt her face heat up so much that she knew she must have been bright red. It was as clear as it had ever been before that she had not inherited an absent mindedness, and it seemed a certain lack of tact, from just a single parent. Still, despite having grown up with behaviour like that, she was still flabbergasted at what her mother and father were saying. She knew they meant well, but she was still about to die from a serious overdose of embarrassment.

"Mum! Dad! Would you stop pairing me up with all of my guy friends!" Mimi exclaimed, catching their attention.

"Oh, I'm sorry darling. You just have so many nice friends." Keisuke said as though nothing had happened and Satoe smiled, nodding with closed eyes.

Mimi could only sigh. She would not trade them for the world, but she still had to put up with her parents' antics on a daily basis; this just happened to be one of the few times that it ever bothered her. Still, both of them always managed to make up for it in some way, and what she would hear next would prove that this time was no exception.

"Mimi, we're so happy for you. We both think that Izzy is an excellent young man." Keisuke told his daughter happily.

"Yes, and we'd love it if you'd invite him over for dinner one day soon." Satoe added kindly, "Your father and I would love to get to know him better."

Mimi smiled. She just could not help it. As eccentric as they were, her mother and father never failed to show love and kindness, even to the point where it might have made most normal people uneasy, and Mimi found herself giving them both a hug.

After that she was jittery for hours before she eventually fell asleep. To her mind, things could not have looked better. Everything appeared to be going right, as though she had been blessed by something magical. Even as she drifted off in her soft, warm bed, her only thoughts were of the fantastic day that she hoped awaited her with the rising of the sun.

* * *

Tai and Sora were wandering around the park, hand in hand, as the full moon shone down on them from above. They had been out to dinner and were now spending the last hour before they were expected home chatting about nothing in particular, one of their favourite pastimes.

The last few days they had been swamped with so much school work that they had barely been able to spend any time together outside of class, and it had been Sora who suggested they take a night off together, a proposal that both were immensely grateful for. As the couple continued to stroll leisurely down the paved path, passing the fountain in the centre, their conversation turned to their friends.

"So Matt's still giving it to you over the whole 'dummy' thing?" Sora asked her boyfriend sympathetically.

"Yeah, but I think he's giving up now, I mean it got old pretty quick." Tai answered, chuckling at the name that had irritated him only a few days before.

"Yeah, it wasn't that bad in the first place anyway." Sora mused, receiving a snort from Tai.

"You're just happy that you don't have a younger sister that the little spy is best friends with." Tai quipped, nudging her arm as they walked.

Sora giggled lightly.

"Very true." she admitted jovially, "We really need to get some dirt on T.K. so he won't go blabbing to Matt."

"And Kari as well, because I'm pretty sure she puts him up to it half the time." Tai added with a snigger, "I swear her favourite thing next to being a little brown haired angel is psychologically torturing me."

The pair laughed heartily together before turning and grinning at each other, keeping their slow pace until they reached the park gate. Even though it was only ten minutes to ten the traffic was sparse and it made for a peaceful moment as the couple exited the park, still gently holding each other's hand, and stood together under the glow of a lamppost.

"We need to be home in ten." Sora murmured, both of them playfully swinging their arms back and forth.

"Yeah, I guess." Tai responded a little glumly.

"Aww, don't be like that, we can go out again tomorrow night if you want. I'm still free." Sora said affectionately, trying to cheer him up.

"But that's sooooo far away." Tai said jokingly, putting on a child-like voice and pouting.

"C'mon, walk me home." Sora insisted through a fit of laughter, to which Tai relented.

As they ambled home, held hands becoming a walking embrace, talk again turned to their friends.

"Tomorrow's the big day for Mimi and Izzy." Tai said, thinking of the nervous wreck Izzy must have been at that point.

"Yeah, Izzy'll be a mess tonight, won't he?" Sora replied, reading his mind.

"And knowing Mimi, she's probably bouncing off the walls right about now." Tai added and they both laughed at the very literal mental image that was conjured into both of their minds.

"Hey, if we're out tomorrow night we might just catch a glimpse of them." Sora pointed out, receiving a sceptical look from Tai.

"What? Are you suggesting we should st-" he questioned but Sora cut him off before he could finish, figuring out what he meant.

"No, of course not." she asserted, shaking her head, "I just mean we might run into each other by coincidence."

"Yeah, you wanna stalk them." Tai retorted with a smirk, earning him a soft kick to the shins. "Hey!"

Sora grinned back at him before releasing him and breaking away from his arms before he could do anything else.

"Cheap shot." Tai muttered, but still smiled back at her.

Sora poked out her tongue and laughed, which echoed gracefully through the mostly silent streets. Tai moved back over to her and both resumed the position she had just broken.

As they reached the bottom of Sora's apartment building they again broke apart and shared a quick goodnight kiss. Before she began the ascent to her apartment, the redhead turned back to face her boyfriend.

"You never gave me an answer before, y'know." she said genially, "You wanna go out for dinner again tomorrow night."

Tai smiled back at her out of the semi-darkness, broken by a few street lamps and the various apartments that still had their lights on.

"Hey, if it means getting a glimpse of what Izzy and Mimi are up to, then I'm game." he replied with a grin, "It's a date."


	8. Chapter 8: The Moment of Truth

**Hi everyone, here's chapter 8. I find the more I think about this story, the more I want to add because I'm liking the events in it myself. I only originally intended this to be about 20 000 words, but it's turning into more than that and I feel some credit for my willingness to keep going needs to go to the readers. So thank you all, I'm quite enjoying writing this and I hope you're all enjoying reading it. To the reviewers:**

**TheAceOfSpades96: Thanks, I like writing (and reading) Taiora, so it's good to hear that you like my depiction of it.**

**Candified Smile: I'm so chuffed to hear how much you like my story. It makes all the work worth it :)**

**Koumi-Loc: Looks like the pressure's on. Thanks again.**

**Also thanks to DCLWLOKPR44424 for your review and to WhiteDeath239 for your follow and favourite (for this and my other story).**

Time was draining away, much faster than he would have liked. It was almost time. The whole day, the whole week in fact, had been leading up to this. An excitement, matched only by a profound dread, coursed through him like electricity. His pounding heart echoed in his mind and in his ears and a lump, formed hours ago, was sitting heavily in his throat. The delicate balance of high and low was teetering within him and each passing second was a tax on his spirit as he awaited and prepared for what was inevitably to come. These thoughts occupied Izzy's mind as he fixated over every little physical feature of his that he could think of, as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

Before meeting Mimi the previous Sunday, he had gone through an intense period of a little over half an hour, cultivating a smart, but still leisurely appearance to present to the girl before asking her on the date that was now so ominously close. However, pedantic as he had been a week before, his efforts for this outing, the true first test of what he hoped would be a relationship of something more than friendship between him and her, were in a league of their own.

Izzy had spent a good half hour picking out exactly what to wear, casting an eagle eye over his rather limited wardrobe. Since then, he had used up another hour showering, brushing his teeth, fixing his hair and a plethora of other things he had never so much as considered before in his life. This was all to say nothing of the many hours he had invested in mental preparation since he had awoken that morning. He was sure that, through his fussy preparations, his parents had been watching him. Still, they had not yet said anything to him, so he thought nothing of it.

To anyone else it would have seemed as though he was preparing for some life altering event; a wedding, a graduation or maybe even a conference that would change the course of one's career, not a simple dinner date with a girl he had already known for six years. But, to Izzy, this mere date ranked among the most terrifying and difficult things he had ever done, to his recollection.

It was imperative that he did it right, that he did not blow what he saw as his big chance with the only girl he had ever obsessed over. It did not even occur to him that he was only sixteen and had his whole life ahead of him, nor that this special girl was already his friend. The only thing that crossed his mind was her. It was Mimi, and nothing scared him as much as failure. As far as he was willing to think, this was his chance to prove to her that he was worth it, even if he had doubts about that in his own mind.

Leaving his worries for just a second, he regarded his own reflection in the mirror. Clad in navy pants, an orange button up shirt and a dark jacket, his hair, again was set seamlessly and his teeth were as clean and white as his manic brushing could get them. He sighed. Try as he might, he could not live up to the ideal he thought he needed to be, but he had done what he could with what he had.

Checking his watch and seeing he had another fifteen minutes before he needed to leave, Izzy exited the bathroom and sat on the living room couch. In silence, he looked back at how he had felt over the past week. In these fresh memories he saw a part of himself that had not surfaced for many years. In the last several days the usually happy, passionate and focused Izzy Izumi had been replaced by an obsessive, anxious and self-conscious copy. He did not like what he saw and, if he was honest, it alarmed him.

Out of all of it, it was the obsessive part that frightened him the most. Was he perhaps taking this too seriously? Was it right that he put so much pressure on himself? Was he wrong to want Mimi's acceptance? It hurt his head to think about, but he was torn. Part of him demanded he examine his behaviour and thoughts, that he get to the bottom of it and resolve it logically, like he tried to do with all of his problems. But there was another voice that wanted him to forget it, to bury it and to ignore his internal conflict. He had no idea which side he should listen to, and with just over ten minutes before he needed to leave he was beginning to panic.

Izzy jolted as he felt someone sit down next to him and he spun to see his father looking back at him with a warm smile on his face.

"Are you ready to go, son?" he asked, and Izzy could tell that there was probably some advice coming. Still, he decided to be honest as it was probably not that hard to tell he was feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

"I dunno, Dad. I guess so." he told his father a little despondently and received another warm smile from him.

"Ah yes, I know that feeling." Masami said a little whimsically, which made Izzy give him a sceptical look.

"Wait, what?" the teen queried.

"As of now you're probably so scared about stuffing it all up that you can't think straight, am I right?" his father replied with a knowing smile.

Izzy just sat in silence gaping at the man, shocked at how easily he had been read.

"I was the exact same way when I was about your age." Masami explained with a light chuckle.

"R-really?" was all Izzy could say as he stared at his father.

"Mhmm. It's natural, son, and I can tell you care a lot for her because you're not normally like this." the man responded kindly.

"S-so what should I do?" Izzy asked, seeing that maybe this was his chance to break out of the state his mind was in.

"Like everything, there's no golden rule here, Izzy. I can't tell you what will and won't work." Masami answered, earning a disappointed frown, but he soon added, "What I can tell you, though, is to just try to have fun."

"That's all?" Izzy asked, a little incredulously.

"Well Mimi isn't going to enjoy herself if you're a stick in the mud, now is she?" his father bantered back at him with a cheerful smile.

Izzy sat and pondered these words. His father was right of course, but the amount of times he had been told that there was no right answer was beginning to get on his nerves. Everything made sense, but at the same time it was totally confusing. How could he cope with so many options, when one action could lead to a million conclusions with no greater certainty than the twists and turns of life itself? Again checking his watch, he saw that none of that really mattered much anymore; time was up and he had to leave now.

With great trepidation he stood, thanked his father and bayed him goodbye before exclaiming a similar farewell to his mother who, judging from her reply, was in the study. Taking one last deep breath and checking to see he had his wallet, phone and keys, Izzy opened the apartment door and proceeded out into the evening air.

* * *

Mimi had parked herself in front of the bathroom mirror and was admiring her handiwork. She was again going for the simple but pretty look that she had donned the week before, however she had seen fit to change up the colour scheme. Instead of the skirt and blouse, Mimi had opted for a plain dress that stopped at her knees, and which only had a few stitched patterns here and there. She had debated with herself for some time on what colour would be best, as she had the same style dress in a few different shades. In the end she had settled on the pale pink one and she smiled to herself, thinking of how many people she would not be surprising with her choice. With the dress she had picked a matching pair of boots and had opted to wear her hair down. Giving herself one last look over, she nodded contentedly at her reflection, pleased with her efforts.

Stepping out into the living room, Mimi heard a knock at the door. She was about to make her way over and answer it, but before she took two steps her father appeared from the kitchen, announcing that he would get it. After a few seconds and some muffled conversation from the doorway, Keisuke Tachikawa returned with a jittery and nervous looking Izzy. Mimi gave him a sympathetic smile as he was ushered into the living room by her father.

As the man took a seat, Izzy made a beeline over to where she was standing. Mimi laughed inwardly; she could tell that the young genius was staying close to her out of anxiousness as much as he was out of affection. Right now he looked like a dog caught in the headlights. He had met her parents many times before, but she could only think that the current circumstances changed the game completely for him. He was just about to take their only daughter out unsupervised of course, and while Mimi's mother and father were generally quite laidback, they also had a famous tendency to be over dramatic.

Mimi stood by Izzy while her father barraged him with the usual questions, like what he had been doing since the last time they saw each other, where he planned to take her, how late the pair was planning on staying out and so on and so forth. While she had been amused to begin with, that all soon wore off and Mimi quickly started feeling bad for Izzy, especially when her mother entered the room and joined in what was the most one-sidedly awkward conversation she could remember. After close to ten minutes, during which time she watched Izzy become progressively redder, she saw fit to end her date's torture and get him out of the parent zone quick smart.

"Well it's great that you're getting along so well with Izzy, but we'll be late if we don't go now." Mimi announced with a very forced smile and laugh, "I guess we'll see you later."

Keisuke blinked at the interruption, but a cheerful smile soon appeared on his face.

"Alright honey, we don't want to keep you, now do we?" the man said, chuckling to himself while his wife smiled widely at the young couple.

"No, but thanks for being so nice to Izzy. We've gotta go now." Mimi blabbered hastily, already starting to nudge Izzy towards the door.

"OK, you two have fun then." her mother called out to them as they neared their escape.

"We will." Mimi called back.

"And remember sweetie, we'd like you home by ten thirty." her father added pleasantly.

"Sure thing." Mimi replied, her hand on the doorknob.

"It was really nice seeing you Mr and Mrs Tachikawa." Izzy told them politely as he was whisked out of the door.

"It was nice seeing you t-" both parents said in unison, but were cut off when Mimi closed the door.

The girl sighed in relief and leaned back against the wall outside the apartment.

"Sorry about them." she told the boy, "They like to be nice, but they kinda overdo it."

Izzy still looked like he was caught in a trap. He was squirming uncomfortably where he stood and Mimi could see the faintest trail of sweat down the side of his neck. Guessing he was probably wondering about how he had been received by her parents, she did her best to reassure him.

"Don't worry, they like you." Mimi told him warmly, receiving a wobbly grin in return.

"Thanks." he mumbled embarrassedly, "I was hoping to make a good impression, but your Mum and Dad are so talkative I thought they were gonna overload my brain. They're both really friendly though, which is a positive."

Mimi laughed lightly. Izzy was not the first person her parents had freaked out before, and she was happy to see that he was not completely discouraged.

"Well there's no need to worry. You only have to deal with me now." she joked.

It was darker outside, but in the half-light she could swear that Izzy was going red again. Seeing this, she smiled to herself. Her previous relationships had all been with more outgoing types, and it was a flattering change for Izzy to be shy and reserved around her. But she wanted him to be at ease because she liked him best when he was out of his shell a bit more. Gently grasping his wrist, she got his attention.

"Now if I remember right, you promised me dinner and a movie." she said brightly, giving him a friendly smile.

It took a couple of seconds, but Izzy jolted with a new energy and started talking at high speed.

"Y-yeah, right of course. I booked us a table at that European place you like, a-and there're a couple of movies on at the same time, so we… we can decide now, o-or we can do it over dinner, and then…" he rambled.

Mimi just let him go on. While she felt bad that he was nervous and uncomfortable, she still had the guilty pleasure of finding him infectiously adorable when he was like this. When she considered it, too, she was very flattered that Izzy cared about this as much as he did. He seemed to be bent on getting it right and making sure she had a good time.

Suddenly, Mimi sensed her face warming up. It was cool out in the evening breeze, but her cheeks were getting hotter as she felt blood flowing intensely under the skin. She looked away from Izzy as she was sure that she was now blushing as well. Diverting his attention, she seized his wrist, this time much more firmly, and started to pull him towards the lifts.

"That sounds lovely Izzy. Let's go now, we don't wanna be late." Mimi blurted out, her voice a little higher than she would have liked.

Glancing at him briefly as they waited for the elevator to arrive, she could see that his expression had not changed much. Taking this as him having not noticed her own embarrassment, she breathed a sigh of relief. Mimi had no idea where it had come from, but even though she dearly hoped he had not noticed, the feeling had excited her. Her heartbeat, while not racing, had increased and she still felt a shadow of the flush that had come across her face not even a minute before. Thinking to herself, she liked feeling this way about someone, and she was glad that, this time around, it was Izzy.

Mimi smiled to herself. This was going to be an interesting night.


	9. Chapter 9: Keep Calm and Carry On

**Sorry for the lateness of this chapter, no excuses. Thanks to the reviewers (Koumi-Loc, Candified Smile, AceOfSpades96 and a Guest), I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far. No more stalling, here's your overdue chapter 9.**

The couple sat in the brightly lit restaurant, chatting animatedly as they slowly ate their meals. Izzy had taken Mimi to her favourite restaurant in town, a small European establishment, and she had decided to indulge in her favourite French dish, bouillabaisse. As she ate another spoonful of the deliciously rich seafood stew, she listened intently to what the redheaded genius was saying.

"- of course, it's not always easy to have something new each week that everyone is able to manage over the course of an hour, but I usually come up with something." he rattled on, completely absorbed in his descriptions of running the computer club, "Two weeks ago, we spent the meeting working with editing and production programs. Basically we were making video; just casual stuff, things that you'd put on Youtube, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves."

Mimi just sat back and listened to him. She had already spoken at length about friends in the United States that she still kept up with, and for now she was content to listen to Izzy's stories. It was invigorating to see him talk about something he was so intensely passionate about, and the energy with which he spoke made it hard for Mimi not to smile.

At first, when he had arrived at her home, he had been so uptight and nervous. For the entire walk to the restaurant, his mood had changed from shy and uncomfortable to very single-minded and almost panicky, she thought, as he seemed driven to get to their destination as fast as they possibly could. However, once they had been seated and their meals ordered, he had relaxed slightly. It had not taken long from there to get him onto a topic that enthralled him and, like a bull out of the gates, he had jumped headfirst into the conversation and shed whatever worries he might have had before. He never dominated the discussion, but he had come out of his shell and Mimi was delighted to see it.

It always fascinated her to see people who could put the level of zeal that she had for fashion into pursuits of their own. She had used to think that Izzy's electronics hobby was one of the most boring topics it was possible to talk about. Now, however, she found that giving such an ardent lover of the subject a chance to describe it made it so much more intriguing than she ever gave it credit for.

After another minute, Izzy finished his spiel about the computer club and paused to take a bite of his meal, some type of chicken which Mimi had not heard the name of. Raising his head after swallowing a mouthful, Izzy's eyes met hers.

"So when was the last time you went to the Digital World to see Palmon?" he asked her, and from the look in his eyes she could tell he was thinking about his partner, Tentomon.

Mimi sat whimsically in thought for a few moments. The mention of her Digimon partner and the world in which the digital monsters lived had sent her mind onto a new tangent. There was many a time she wished for a return to the old days, when she and her fellow Digidestined would travel to the digital world on a daily basis or, in the case of the original eight of which Mimi and Izzy were both a part, even live in that dimension for an extended period with their partners. Despite the constant fighting, with other Digimon as well as with each other, Mimi remembered fondly the days when she, Izzy, Tai, Sora, Matt, Joe, T.K. and Kari had trekked the digital realm for days and weeks and ultimately saved it from the tyrants who sought to dominate it, as well as the human world. Even when she had been in America and the younger generation of Davis, Yolei, Cody and Ken had risen to take up the bulk of the responsibilities, Mimi had still been a regular in the Digital World. Nowadays she was lucky to get a chance to visit Palmon in her world once every month or so, and the Digidestined rarely managed to all go at once. High school had a way of stealing most of your free time.

Realising that it had been almost ten seconds and Izzy's question had gone unanswered, Mimi shook her head and spoke up.

"I think the last time I saw Palmon was… three weeks ago, I think." she said, touching a couple of fingers to her chin and directing her gaze upwards as she considered her answer, "Wow, it's been a while…"

"That's not so bad." Izzy replied with a warm smile, "I saw Tentomon last week but before then it had been over a month."

Mimi smiled back at him, not in happiness but with an unhidden sadness. She could tell that Izzy, underneath his contented exterior, missed the Digimon just as much as she did. In fact, apart from the Digimon, Mimi thought that he would miss the Digital World even more than she did, given how fascinated he was by its complex and intricate workings and his love of analysing and exploring every nook and cranny in the code that he could find.

Caught up in her own thoughts, Mimi gazed passively back at him, paying attention to no particular details. For a fraction of a second, however, she saw a flicker of something in his face. As what she had seen played back through her mind, she was sure that what she had caught sight of had been a frown, a discomforted grimace that had disappeared as soon as it had arisen. Concerned, Mimi brought his attention back from his meal, which he had retreated to moments before.

"Something wrong, Izzy?" she asked casually, not wanting to aggravate a potentially insignificant matter.

"Hmm?" Izzy mumbled back, jerking his head up away from his plate, "Oh, n-nothing. I'm fine."

Mimi nodded and put on a smile, but she could not shake the feeling that something had started to bother him. Despite her concerns, though, Izzy was no longer displaying any trace of unease, so she put her worries aside and returned to her meal.

For the next twenty minutes the pair returned to light conversation; still engaging, but somehow more restrained than it had been before their talk of the Digital World. As soon as they had finished their meals, Izzy roused them, eager to reach the cinema before their movie started. Mimi offered to pay her half, but knew there was no real point as Izzy insisted on footing the bill. She did not bother to argue; she knew there would be no getting him to back down on it, so there was no point in trying. Despite his shyness, he could be exceedingly stubborn when he wanted to be.

Exiting the restaurant, the couple walked briskly towards the movie theatres, still chatting away. But, every so often, Mimi would throw Izzy a sideways glance, worried he was not enjoying himself as much as she was.

* * *

As the credits started to roll and the other patrons began to file out like a sea of shadows against the screen before them, Mimi leaned over to Izzy in the semi-darkness.

"What'd you think about that?" she asked, happy but a little exasperated from having sat still for so long.

"It didn't really make that much sense and it was a little bit convoluted, I thought." Izzy commented matter-of-factly, "But, I still thought it was fairly funny."

"Well, it was a comedy, Izzy." Mimi laughed, "It was a little silly, but I liked it."

Mimi was not able to clearly see Izzy's facial expression as the cinema lighting had not been turned on, leaving the flickering beam from the projector and the thin white letters scrolling up the screen as their only light source. The tone with which he spoke his next words gave her a clue as to what she might have seen, however.

"Oh… yeah, yeah, it was enjoyable, you're right." he said rather quickly in a much lower voice, as though he was trying to backtrack on something embarrassing.

When the hoped for bloopers did not appear on screen, the pair stood from their seats for the first time in two hours and made their way toward the exit at a casual pace. Hoping to lighten the mood, Mimi decided to spark up a bit of conversation.

"That was funny but, y'know, I've seen better." she said lightly, "I liked a few American directors while I was over in the States."

"Not Michael Bay?" Izzy questioned, like he was pleading for her to say 'no'.

"Eww, no way!" Mimi replied, acting revolted but unable to contain a bout of giggles, "I prefer Martin Scorsese, actually."

"Oh, good…" Izzy replied a little awkwardly.

"What about you?" she prodded him curiously as they walked through the cinema lobby and out onto the street.

"Um, well Americans are good, and I like a few of them," he mused, still sounding as though he was a bit out of place, "but I like Japanese directors the most."

Mimi was a little worried about him now. She had enjoyed herself all night. Izzy had been fun to talk to and she had had a good time at both of their destinations, having had a delectable meal she had not enjoyed in some time and watched a movie which they had laughed at together and just revelled in each other's company. But through it all, Mimi had sensed that Izzy was not completely with her on everything. At times he was so completely engrossed in what they were doing it was as though he had downed a can of energy drink in one go. But, at other times, he had been more withdrawn and had looked and sounded like he was embarrassed, or even ashamed of something. It made her uneasy, not for her own sake, but because she wished for him to enjoy himself as much as she was.

Hoping that this conversation she had started might bring back the cheerful, energetic Izzy, Mimi pressed on.

"Oh, who's your favourite then?" she queried.

"Umm… I guess I've always liked Hayao Miyazaki the most." Izzy told her and Mimi lit up immediately.

"Oh wow, I love him so much!" she squealed, ecstatic to hear another of her friends liked her favourite director.

"Really?" Izzy said, slightly taken aback but, as Mimi had hoped, he jumped forward into the conversation, "I never knew, but I just love what he did with 'Howl's Moving Castle'."

"Me too!" Mimi exclaimed happily, "But 'Spirited Away' is still his best one. I cried so hard during that."

"Heh heh, ah, me too…" Izzy admitted sheepishly, and upon hearing that Mimi could no longer contain herself.

"Awwww, that's so cute." she crooned and playfully gave him a light hug.

When Mimi pulled away, she could see that Izzy was red all over like he had been horribly sunburnt earlier in the day. She could only giggle as she watched him while they ambled vaguely in the direction of her apartment. They still had about twenty minutes to kill and she was drawing him back out of himself again, so Mimi made sure not to walk too fast.

"It's awesome to find someone else who likes Miyazaki." she said while beaming at Izzy, "There was, like, absolutely no one in America who liked him too and I don't think any of the others do either."

"Mmm, I know. I tried to show Joe a few of his films, but he just said that he didn't enjoy animations." Izzy replied, now sounding more and more upbeat, "And I know for a fact that Matt, Tai and Sora are the same way."

"We so need to have a movie marathon. Soon." Mimi stated firmly, although it sounded more like a cheery suggestion.

Izzy nodded merrily and Mimi smiled back at him, glad to see that he was now so much more relaxed than he had been mere minutes before. Sighing contentedly, Mimi continued walking home with Izzy, the banter now flowing much more freely.

* * *

They had finally returned to Mimi's apartment, right on time to meet her parents' curfew. Izzy had been in a much lighter mood since they had left the cinema and he felt a fresh energy within him. On the way home the pair had found out that they both liked Hayao Miyazaki and had entered a very involved conversation on the matter. He was overjoyed to discover someone else who shared his interest, and it seemed as though Mimi liked the director just as much as he did. However, that conversation had also given him a great wave of relief.

All night, he had been worried sick about ensuring Mimi had a good time, and every so often throughout their date he had felt like kicking himself. Izzy remembered how, at the movies, he had tried to analyse the film they had seen. It was a comedy for goodness sake, he thought. Why did he think that it would be interesting to talk about the plot? Even at dinner, he had droned on for so long about the computer club. He had become so lost in what he was saying that he only thought about what Mimi would think after he was finished. Surely she must have been bored out of her mind listening to all of that, he thought. There was no way she would find his little school club stories interesting.

What he had said after that, though, was what really made him cringe at his stupidity. He had foolishly brought up the Digital World and their partners, and he had known that Mimi had not seen Palmon for a little while. Izzy's face contorted slightly with the anger he was feeling towards himself. How could he have been so dense? Of course Mimi missed Palmon, and she did not need him reminding her of how long it had been since she had last seen her partner.

As they disembarked the lift on Mimi's floor, Izzy exhaled heavily, hoping he had not caused so much damage that she would no longer wish to go out with him. Reaching her door, he decided that it would be best to try and apologise for his thickheadedness before wishing her goodnight. Maybe he could salvage just a little of her favour before the night was over.

"Here we are." he said softly as she turned to face him, "I hope you had a good night… a-and I'm sorry for being so stupid at dinner and at the movies."

Mimi had at first been smiling, but now her lips had dipped and she now wore a look of concern.

"What d'you mean, Izzy?" she asked him worriedly, sounding genuine, but Izzy was sure she was just trying to not hurt his feelings.

"I'm sorry if I bored you, and… I shouldn't have brought up the Digital World. I know how much you miss Palmon and I never should have mentioned it." he rambled.

"Izzy…" Mimi murmured.

He knew he had embarrassed himself, but he had to say something. Her reaction was not exactly what he had been banking on and now he was at the same level of confusion that he had been before he left to pick her up, earlier that day. Was he in the clear, or had he made things even worse now? He felt as though he had something heavy, like a large marble, stuck in his throat. Still, he had to make sure he was understood, he had to make sure that there was still something in the future.

"Mimi, I…" Izzy began, but she did not let him finish.

Mimi had swept in and planted a light kiss on his lips. It was just a peck that had lasted less than a second, but for Izzy, his entire world stopped from the moment their lips met. Why was she doing this? What was going on? He had no idea what the answers to those questions were, but they were the only thoughts that managed to squeeze into his now blank mind.

Breaking him from his stupor, Mimi spoke.

"Izzy, I really enjoyed myself tonight, so there's no need to worry." Mimi told him with a grin, "I was totally serious when I said we should have a movie marathon and I really want us to get together again for that soon."

Izzy just stared at her as though she had pardoned him for some crime for which he owed his life. It was almost too good to be true.

"You… r-really?" was all he could muster.

"Mhmm." Mimi nodded, "Oh and by the way, my parents said they'd like to have you over for dinner one day, so keep next Friday free if that's OK with you."

Izzy just nodded back at her. She smiled and gave him a hug before placing her hand on the doorknob.

"Night Izzy, thanks for the lovely evening." Mimi said with a soft smile.

"Goodnight." he said whimsically as she passed through the doorway and out of sight.

He had thought he had messed everything up. He thought that she had had a terrible time and that it was all his fault. But now it seemed that he had been wrong. A strange, almost awkward euphoria filled him from head to toe as he continued to stand absolutely dumbstruck outside the Tachikawa residence. Not only had she said she had enjoyed herself, but she had kissed him. Him. Of course it had not been anything more than a quick peck on the lips, but there was nothing else he had to compare it to. It was a feeling like no other that he could not really describe. As he thought about their brief, but breathtaking contact, only one word entered his mind.

"Prodigious."

* * *

"Ha, that was so adorable." Sora commented as she and Tai neared his apartment block.

"I know, right. They looked liked they were getting on great." the wild haired teen replied with a contented grin.

The couple had been out to dinner themselves that night and they had kept tabs on where Mimi and Izzy had been for most of the night. There had been times when they had left the younger pair to their own devices, but he and Sora had made sure not to lose track of them, and they had had the time of their lives spying on their two friends.  
Tai and Sora had only managed to listen in on the conversation after Mimi and Izzy had left the theatre, but from what they had heard everything seemed to have gone swimmingly. As for the eavesdroppers, they were fairly certain that they had not been detected, but they had needed to clamp their hands over their mouths to stop themselves from laughing when Mimi had spontaneously hugged Izzy.

Tai was overjoyed to see that his younger friend had just experienced, from what he could tell, a successful first date. His elation was made all the more satisfying by the knowledge that he and Sora had both helped to set the pair on the path to each other. While they had been together for over a year, neither he nor his girlfriend considered themselves to be any good at matchmaking, both of them knowing how agonisingly long it had taken the both of them to muster the courage to fess up to one another. However, it felt good to have been a part of Izzy and Mimi getting together for, what they hoped to be, a meaningful relationship. It was a unique accomplishment, one that both Tai and Sora had revelled in.

All the way to Tai's home, their conversation revolved around the younger couple, as it had for most of the night. One of the things they had enjoyed discussing the most was, looking back at the past, how Mimi and Izzy had acted towards each other since they met. It had been a revelation to both he and Sora that the redheaded genius and the bubbly fashionista had feelings for one another. Now they had turned their surprise into fun by dissecting their interactions and trying to figure out exactly when two people, who at first could not stand each other, managed to fall for one another.

Tai and Sora had laughed at their memories of how Mimi's melodrama and Izzy's obliviousness to the world around him had clashed so brilliantly, but even now they had to admit that they should have seen something between the two over the years. It had been slow and subtle but, like the natural change of the wind, the pair moved closer and closer together, especially in the year since Mimi had returned from America.

At last they reached Tai's apartment and he turned to Sora, giving her a quick kiss to say goodnight, as was their custom.

"Thanks for the night, Sora, and thank _you_ for walking _me_ home tonight." he said playfully, grinning at her, which she enthusiastically returned.

"Hey, I couldn't let you walk out in the streets alone, someone has to protect you." she joked.

Tai gave her a mock bow as he chuckled heartily.

"I'll be over at eleven tomorrow. Hopefully we can finish that geography assignment before it kills us." he told her as he made his way over to the now repaired lift.

"I'll see you then." she replied, happily giving him a small wave, "Maybe we'll get lucky and Mimi'll call round for a debrief too."

Tai laughed.

"Here's hoping."


	10. Chapter 10: Debrief

**Hey again. A bit busy this past week but here's the next chapter.**

**Candified Smile: And thank you for such a kind review on a hot afternoon.  
**

**Thanks also to DCLWLOKPR44424, Koumi-Loc and TheAceOfSpades96 for reviewing the last chapter and to artsyhime for following and favouriting.**

"So you followed them all night?"

"Well, not the entire night, but yeah, mostly." Sora replied to Matt's disbelieving question.

While Tai and Sora had planned to spend their Sunday afternoon studying, that idea had been given up after little more than an hour and the couple were now detailing their observations of Mimi and Izzy's escapades from the night before to Matt via speaker phone. They knew that they would be regretting this goofing off later, but for the time being they were having far too much fun to care. Both of them were lounging in Sora's room, she lying on her stomach on her bed and Tai slouching in her desk chair, with the phone lying on her bedside table, just close enough to both of them for their replies to Matt to be clearly heard on the other end of the line.

"I really don't know whether I should respect that or be scared that you two might start stalking me." the blond commented, his voice coloured by unease, which Tai and Sora could not pin down as genuine or not.

"Don't worry Matt, you're far too boring for us to want to tail you on a date anyway." Tai jibed, grinning as he said it.

"Oh ha ha, you're hilarious Tai." Matt responded sarcastically, "By the way, shouldn't you two be finishing that assignment?"

"How do you know we're not already finished it?" Sora challenged, smiling a little self-consciously.

All the couple received was silence from Matt's end. Taking this to mean that their friend was not buying it, Sora sighed and rolled onto her back.

"OK, we're meant to be working on it, and no we're not done yet." she admitted, her smile turning from self-conscious to sheepish as she did.

"You realise Ms Goto'll skin you alive if you don't have it done for Tuesday. You know how she is." Matt advised them seriously.

"C'mon man, have a little faith in us." Tai replied lazily from his seat.

"Dude, the only reason you're on a B average in Geography is because Sora keeps helping you." Matt pointed out with a small laugh.

"Yeah, and the only reason she's on a B in Biology is because I help her, so fair trade." Tai retorted smugly.

"Oh sure, and the moon is made of cheese, Tai." Matt shot back.

"Actually that's true." Sora interjected, receiving silence from the blond for a few seconds.

"Seriously?" Matt questioned incredulously after a few moments.

"What? I'm not allowed to struggle with one subject?" she said a little defensively, and Tai grinned at her from across the room.

Again there was silence from Matt's end, which both teens were a little off put by.

"Matt?" Sora called.

"Sorry, just noting this down in case I ever need to take the mickey out of you, Sora." Matt replied in a playful, mocking tone.

Tai and Sora just laughed, knowing that while their friend was joking, in reality that probably was the best bit of dirt he had on Sora. The discussion continued for another few minutes until Sora's mother called out from outside in the hallway.

"Sora! Mimi's here to speak with you." the woman shouted.

"Oh, I think we'll have to let you go, Matt." Sora said quickly.

"Did I just hear what I think I did?" Matt replied curiously.

"Yep, and no I won't let you know what she says." Sora responded curtly before moving over to the phone, preparing to hang up.

"Alright, I'll see you two tomorrow then." Matt said indifferently.

"See ya." Tai and Sora said in unison before she ended the call.

Sora then moved over to her door and opened it to find her mother and Mimi standing on the other side. The teen seemed to be bubbling with excitement, her feet shuffling and twitching as she stood there before the redhead. The girl was also wringing her hands, clearly eager to open her mouth and spill forth an afternoon's worth of recollections from the night before.

"Here she is, dear. Now did you want anything else while I'm not busy? Have you and Tai finished those sandwiches?" the older woman said kindly to her daughter.

"No Mum, we're not done yet, so unless Mimi wants something…" Sora said, and after receiving a vigorous shake of the head from the younger girl, added, "Nope, we're fine."

"Alright then." her mother replied, "Just make sure you don't forget about that assignment of yours."

The woman flashed a knowing smile at Sora and, over the girl's shoulder, at Tai, suggesting that she was well aware of the couple's slacking off.

"Yeah… sure." Sora responded guiltily as she ushered Mimi in and closed the door hastily on her mother.

Returning to her spot on her bed, Sora pointed to a plump, red coloured beanbag in the corner of the room, wordlessly offering Mimi a seat. The younger girl took her up on it and sank down into the squishy mass, crossing her legs once she was comfortable. Tai gave her a wave and a hello when she finished settling down, and she returned them with a small smile.

"You want me to leave before you spill everything?" Tai asked.

After receiving a small nod from Mimi, he got up and headed for the bedroom door.

"I'll just be out here." he said simply as he turned the knob.

"Don't bother Mum too much now." Sora called out as he exited, laughing as she did.

"Yeah, yeah." Tai said back, waving a hand at her before closing the door on the two girls.

Sora and Mimi sat in silence for a few moments, during which the only sounds came from out in the living room where it seemed like Tai was in a conversation with the redhead's mother. Not wanting to waste time, Sora made the first move to get Mimi talking.

"So… how was last night?" she asked tentatively.

Mimi raised her head and opened her mouth to speak, but a sudden twitch in the girl's neck and a subtle furrowing of her brow suggested that she had only just then begun to consider what it was she wanted to say. Finally, she spoke up.

"It was fun… but it was kinda awkward too." she confessed, raising her arms and placing her hands on the crown of her head.

"Awkward how?" Sora probed, hoping to get a bit more information than she had already received.

"He was just so nervous for half the night, y'know." Mimi explained, keeping her hands on her head as she leaned further back into the beanbag.

"Yeah, but it's Izzy we're dealing with here," Sora commented with a small chuckle, "you had to expect that."

Mimi nodded, frowning slightly.

"It just… like, it worries me a bit." she mumbled.

"Naaaaawww, that's cute." Sora remarked cheerfully.

From where she lay, the Takenouchi girl saw her friend roll her eyes, but at the same time the brunette could not suppress a giggle, and it escaped her lips, rising and lightening the room.

"I know he's not used to all this, but I want him to relax. Izzy's so much more fun when he's in the mood." Mimi elaborated, lowering her arms and placing them on the raised sides of the beanbag.

"Yeah, you two seemed to be going great when you were walk…" Sora began, but trailed off when she realised what she was saying.

"Wait, what?" Mimi questioned, her eyes narrowing.

"N-nothing. You were talking about-" Sora tried to say, but the Tachikawa girl cut her off.

"Where were you last night, Sora?" Mimi asked suspiciously.

"With Tai." Sora answered a little too quickly.

"You two were following us, weren't you." Mimi accused, her voice rising slightly.

"No, no, we totally weren't. Me and Tai were just out and we saw you two across the street. It was a coincidence, honest." Sora insisted, hoping Mimi would buy her story.

The girl did not reply at first. She just sat there, staring at Sora. All the redhead could think to do was to smile back as genuinely as possible, which she tried but she knew her lips were twitching. Even though she could not manage to keep a straight face, she saw Mimi sigh and wave a hand at her.

"Whatever." the brunette said dismissively, and Sora inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Even though they would probably be laughing about it the next day if Mimi found out that Sora and Tai had intentionally tailed her and Izzy on Saturday night, the older girl was in no mood to be ranted at by her excitable friend.

"So, let's hear some details. How did everything go, start to finish?" Sora pressed, hoping to move the conversation on as swiftly as possible.

The next twenty-five minutes passed by quickly, as Mimi regaled Sora with tales of her evening out with Izzy. There were several times when Sora had to hide a smirk as her friend's description of events often slipped into clear exaggeration, but the redhead nonetheless remained attentive throughout, keen not to miss anything that was said. As she came to the end of her story, Mimi sighed and leaned further back into the beanbag, a contented expression forming on her face after having unloaded everything on her friend.

"He worries way too much." the younger girl mused, her lips curving into a faint and dreamy smile.

"Oh c'mon, you know you like that about him." Sora teased, now in a seated, cross-legged position on her bed.

"Maybe a little." Mimi replied, giving a small shrug.

"So he just dropped you home and that was it?" Sora asked, not expecting anything substantial in reply.

"Well… yeah, kinda." Mimi mumbled lowly, but not soft enough for Sora not to hear and the older girl's ears perked up at this.

"Whaddya mean, 'kinda'?" she questioned further, her voice displaying a rising curiosity.

"Umm, he got sort of… apologetic at my door." Mimi said vaguely, making Sora raise an eyebrow.

"Meaning?" she pressed.

Sora saw Mimi start to fidget slightly where she was seated. The girl could not keep her legs still and she was subtly, but uncontrollably flexing her fingers, as if she was constantly trying to grab hold of something that was formless and intangible, only to keep trying as she missed it each time.

"At dinner he mentioned the Digital World and our partners and I guess he thought he'd been insensitive or something." Mimi explained slowly, "So he tried to say 'sorry' for that and being nervous and stuff."

Sora's thoughts were momentarily pulled towards recollections of her Digimon partner, Biyomon, but she quickly wrenched her mind back to the present. Her curiosity was not to be derailed so easily.

"So what did you do?" Sora asked evenly.

"I just told him that I'd had a good time and everything." Mimi answered, but for some reason she refused to look Sora in the eye, which made the redhead suspicious.

"What aren't you telling me?" she probed, knowing there was more to it.

Mimi twitched even more and she still had her gaze directed away from Sora, off into a corner of the latter's room. But still, the brunette opened her mouth to respond.

"Well, I might've, y'know… kinda, sorta… like… umm…" she blathered with little giggles interspersed in her ramblings.

Sora could not be sure from where she sat, but it seemed like Mimi's cheeks had taken on a very faint shade of red. Grinning to herself, she felt she could deduce what had probably happened at Mimi's front door.

"I bet you gave him a little kiss, didn't you." Sora suggested slyly, her grin widening as she said it.

Mimi squirmed in her squishy seat, an embarrassed smile plastered across her face.

"Yeah… just a small one." she admitted, looking her friend straight in the eye for the first time in a minute.

"Ha! I knew it!" Sora exclaimed.

"I couldn't just leave him feeling guilty like that." Mimi laughed, easing up a little now that it was all out in the open between the two friends, "Besides, I couldn't think of anything else to get him to stop apologising."

They both shared a laugh and Mimi's cheeks slowly lost their tint of red from just a few moments before. Sora eventually decided to move onto another topic.

"So when's your next date?" Sora asked, as she leaned back, propping herself up with her arms.

"He's invited over for dinner on Friday, so probably then." Mimi replied.

"It's a good thing he already knows your parents then." Sora commented, chuckling to herself.

"Oh, they're harmless." Mimi insisted, but by her tone it was clear that even she was not convinced.

"Depends on your definition of harmless." Sora retorted.

Mimi was about the respond when they heard a knock on the door.

"You two done yet, or do I have to stay out here in the cold?" came Tai's voice through the door.

Sora rolled her eyes. It figured that Tai could not amuse himself for too long. Although, in his defence, she thought, it had been well over half an hour since he had left the room. The redhead looked to Mimi, who cocked her head to the side and shrugged her shoulders. Nodding back, Sora fell onto her back and responded to Tai.

"Yeah, we're done." she said in a raised voice.

The door swung open and in strolled Tai, a thoroughly bored look on his face. Clearly he had finished his conversation with Sora's mother some time ago.

"Man Sora, you really need to get yourself a Playstation or something. Your Mum's great and all, but I can only talk about flowers for so long." he moaned, mostly exaggeratedly but his boredom was clearly genuine.

Sora chuckled in spite of herself. She knew exactly what he meant.

"So, what'd I miss?" Tai asked nonchalantly, but Sora could tell he was dying to know what was said.

"Anything Tai should know, Mimi?" Sora asked the Tachikawa girl, leaving it up to her whether or not she wanted anyone else to know.

Mimi sat and looked to be considering what to say. Her gaze lifted to the ceiling and her lips parted and closed, making small popping sounds as she thought to herself. After a few moments, she blinked heavily and mumbled something to herself that was too quiet for Sora to hear. Suddenly she sprung to her feet and gave her two friends a wide smile.

"You can tell him whatever you want, Sora, just keep it to yourselves." Mimi announced in a bubbly voice, "Right now I've gotta go – so much homework."

She bade them both goodbye and skipped out of the room. From outside they could just barely hear her farewell to Sora's mother and the click of the front door closing. Tai looked over at Sora with an incredulous look on his face. Sora just shrugged back at him.

"It's Mimi." she said simply and received a nod from Tai, which she took not as him understanding as much as him saying he could not be bothered to talk about it.

Despite his confusion at Mimi's spontaneous exit, Tai wasted no time in plying Sora about what was said while he was outside.

"Alright, what'd she say?" he probed.

"We were on page three hundred and ten of the text weren't we?" Sora replied, playfully waving her Geography textbook in front of her, grinning mischievously at Tai.

"C'mon Sora, you are _not_ leaving me high and dry on this. Mimi even said you could tell me" Tai pleaded.

The girl just laughed at him.

"Later, Tai." she told him teasingly.

"Pleeeeeease!" he begged, desperate to hear absolutely anything.

Sora laughed again and looked at him thoughtfully. Perhaps a small taste of what he wanted to hear would not hurt.

"Let's just say Izzy got a goodnight present from Mimi." She said slyly.

Tai stared back at her with a blank face for a couple of seconds before he realised what she meant. At that point his face lit up and an ear to ear grin shot onto his face as fast as Sora could blink.

"Ha ha! Way to go Izzy!" Tai exclaimed excitedly and the couple both started laughing happily together.

"What else? What else?" Tai questioned feverishly, hoping to get more.

Sora smirked and looked down at her book.

"The area surrounding Mt. Fuji was once thought to have been…" she read, much to Tai's chagrin.

"Soooooraaaaa!" he whined,

All she could do was laugh. He had gotten his little titbit of information. Now, for the rest of the afternoon, she was going to have fun watching him sweat.


	11. Chapter 11: Meet the Parents

**Good lord it has been far too long since I updated and I apologise for that. I hope you all enjoy this next chapter and to the reviewers:**

**Candified Smile: Thanks so much for sticking with the story and I appreciate your very supportive reviews.**

**DCLWLOKPR44424: It wouldn't be Taiora in my mind without the two of them messing with each other from time to time.**

**Thanks also to Koumi-Loc for reviewing.**

Izzy made his way briskly through the streets of Odaiba on an early Friday evening. It had been an eventful week for him to say the least, and now he was on his way to cap off the seven day stretch with what, under a rather optimistic interpretation, made up a second date with Mimi Tachikawa, the girl he had yearned to be with for a year, who, if the last two weeks had been any indication, had also harboured feelings for him. On the second interpretation, however, he was headed towards what could easily be termed as hell for new or prospective boyfriends. In a little over ten minutes, at which time he would be arriving at the Tachikawa household, Izzy would be sitting down to dinner with Mimi and, to his great trepidation, her parents.

As he continued on, drawing closer and closer to Mimi's apartment, his knotted stomach was tightening more and more, despite his best efforts to calm himself. While he had known her parents for years now, he knew that it was highly probable that his changing relationship with their daughter might have completely transformed their attitude towards him. They had seemed pleasant enough on Saturday when he had picked Mimi up for their first date, but then he had barely been in their company for more than a few minutes. They were nice people, to be certain, which he was well aware of, but above and beyond their politeness and seemingly perpetual states of bliss, Izzy knew that they loved their child beyond all else. There were very few things in the world that could completely change the attitudes of people like the Tachikawas, and Izzy feared that he might have stumbled onto one of those things.

He rubbed his forehead as he walked. It hurt to think about these things and he had been worrying himself ever since Mimi had mentioned dinner with her parents at the end of their first date. However, while such a concern would typically cause him to obsess day and night, there had been something else, something new that had kept him sane. When Mimi had kissed him and given him the reassurances he did not think he would hear, an insurmountable weight was lifted from his shoulders. Ever since, while the very thought of their emerging relationship evoked a unique stress and anxiety he had never felt with anything else, the memory of her lips and her words would always help him keep control. These recollections were never able to quiet his mind completely, but the storm created by his mind was still weathered, its hold on him lessened. He now had proof that he was not the unworthy, unromantic computer geek he had once feared Mimi might think him to be. He knew he had been irrational, but only now was he able to start moving past these doubts.

As if all of that had not been enough, Izzy had also had to contend with his friends all week. It would be wrong to say that he did not cherish the friendship he shared with each and every one of the Digidestined, but at the same time it would also be wrong to say they never drove him close to insanity. True to her word, Yolei seemed to have arranged for all of the others to restrain themselves from teasing him and Mimi. However, the energy all of them had put into messing with him had been channelled into an incredible nosiness on the part of most of the Digidestined, particularly the likes of Davis, Matt, T.K., Kari and Yolei herself. For the first couple of days at school that week, Izzy had been unable to avoid their endless questions. It was almost like he was on trial and they were all cross-examining him, furiously trying to get the truth out of him. For the most part they meant well, this much he knew, but there was still a part of him that squirmed whenever the questions became personal, above and beyond the predictable 'where did you go' and 'what did you do'.

The two people who had stayed silent about him and Mimi for most of the week had been Tai and Sora. Neither had sought to intrude with an infinite line enquiry. In fact, Izzy could not remember a single occasion that week when Tai or Sora had even mentioned the relationship between himself and Mimi. At first he had wondered why this might be, but in the end he had forced himself to conclude that they already knew everything they wanted to know. How that was possible he did not know, but he could make a few educated guesses.

Despite everything, Izzy actually managed to chuckle to himself as he thought of all this. Things were changing for him, and they were changing for the better. He might not like it, but if some minor irritation from his friends was the price he had to pay if he was going to date Mimi, then he was more than willing to endure it.

The young man was so deep in thought that he only realised that he had reached Mimi's apartment block when he found the light around him growing. Looking up he saw the newly turned on lights of nearly every apartment breaking through the now growing darkness as the sun dipped slowly below the horizon. Taking a deep breath, Izzy stepped inside and embarked on one of the more lengthy lift rides he had ever experienced, the whirring motor echoing harshly in the narrow shaft as it very slowly ascended to Mimi's floor. Finally, as he stepped out onto the landing, Izzy felt a pleasant, gentle breeze blow in over the railing. Looking back at the lift, he thought to himself that if someone was trying to give him a sign, they clearly had not decided what it was they were trying to tell him.

Chuckling at his own thinking, he strolled leisurely towards the Tachikawa's front door. He was early, so there was no rush. After taking a little over a minute to walk the twenty-five metres between the lift and the door, Izzy raised his hand and gave a short, sharp knock. It only took a couple of seconds for the door to be answered and as soon as it was opened, out burst Mimi, a large welcoming smile adorning her bright and pretty face. She instantly gave him a warm hug before releasing him and taking him by the hand.

"It's so good you're here, Izzy." she chirped gleefully, "Come on in."

* * *

Izzy sat, much to his surprise, in relative comfort as Mimi's mother and father brought in dinner, which looked to him like rice with some sort of meat swimming in a think orangey-brown sauce. Curious as to what it was, he looked over to Mimi who sat beside him. Catching her eye, he swivelled his head between her and the food a couple of times before she got the message.

"Mum likes cooking international, so tonight we're having a lamb curry. Hope you don't mind." she explained, while Izzy nodded politely.

He had never eaten a curry before, his parents only cooking local foods and never really venturing too far into foreign cuisine. In fact, the French restaurant that he and Mimi had visited the week before had been the first international dish he had had in years. It seemed that living in America for as long as they did had opened up the Tachikawas to the world and he was seeing part of that served in front of him for dinner.

"Now this is what you call a Rogan Josh, Izzy." Keisuke cheerfully described to him, "When we lived in New York there was a little Indian place near us and this was our favourite thing there."

"Mmm, and we managed to persuade the owners to let us have the recipe for it. So now we can have it whenever we want." his wife added merrily.

Izzy smiled and nodded back and, once he had taken a tentative first bite, decided he liked the dish and dug in with more enthusiasm. Conversation was light throughout the meal, mostly revolving around Izzy's school activities, including the computer club, and his hobbies. For a short while, he was counting himself as lucky that Mimi's parents had not delved into anything more personal or embarrassing than that, and from the expression on the girl's face he could tell she was thinking the same thing. However, that was soon to change.

"So, you two have known each other for years now." Mimi's mother commented whimsically, "I remember when you were both ten years old and running around with all those little monsters you're friends with."

"Digimon, Mum." Mimi corrected her, and the sigh that followed told Izzy that she had to make that correction regularly.

"Yes dear, Digimon." Satoe replied to her daughter with a smile on her face.

"Mmmhmm, I wonder when it was that you two started liking each other." Keisuke mused, before chuckling, "I still remember the old days when you would come home, Mimi, and you'd be fuming about Izzy and his computer. Remember, sweetie?"

Both of the parents laughed heartily at their recollections. At the same time, Izzy detected an unmistakeable, and rather large, flinch from beside him. Looking over he saw Mimi sitting wide eyed and grimacing at what she was hearing.

"Dad, I was a just kid…" Mimi mumbled as he face began to turn scarlet.

"Oh, and there was that time you said you wanted to smash his laptop to get him to stop ignoring you. Oh, it was so cute." her mother recalled, caught with her husband in a whirl of nostalgia.

Izzy could remember his early relationship, if one wanted to call it that, with Mimi. How she would become incensed at his, some might say, anti-social use of his laptop. They were uneasy memories for him as he had long felt guilty about ignoring his friends, Mimi included, because he was so caught up with what was on screen. The fact that he was being reminded of it by her parents made it even more awkward and uncomfortable.

Looking back over at Mimi, Izzy could see that the scarlet on her cheeks had deepened. Her eyes were cast down and her fringe had fallen over her eyes. Shifting his gaze downward, he could make out both of her hands, balled into fists and laying squarely on her legs. He could tell that, as unnerved as he felt at that moment, she would have been feeling many times worse.

"Mum… Dad…" she muttered, but only Izzy heard her.

The Izumi boy was completely lost. Both of Mimi's parents had gone and lost themselves down memory lane, while the girl herself seemed to be frozen out of sheer embarrassment. What was he supposed to do? As nice as they were, Izzy knew from both rumour and experience that refocusing the attention of the two Tachikawa parents once they had lost themselves on a tangent was about as easy as convincing Yolei that Davis Motamiya had more than one working brain cell, which was basically next to impossible.

He kept feeling worse and worse for Mimi. He did not care that she had found him annoying all those years ago, but he knew that she would not see it that way. He had absolutely no idea of what to do, but, as the torrent of embarrassing memories continued, Izzy's brain demanded action. So, in a rare act of impulse, the boy did the only, to his mind pathetic, thing he could think of.

Under the table, Izzy gently grabbed hold of one of Mimi's hands, giving it a light squeeze, hoping that, just maybe, this might give her the reassurance he wanted to give her. For a few seconds nothing happened, but eventually he felt her softly squeeze back and, looking over, he saw her raise her head and smile weakly.

"Sorry…" she mouthed at him bashfully.

Izzy grinned at her a little self-consciously and shook his head. After a moment, he even managed to chuckle, closing his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. Mimi brightened up instantly and began chuckling with him, even playfully sticking her tongue at him. Izzy just kept on grinning. She recovered quickly, that much he could say about her.

"Oh, but we're so happy that you two are so fond of each other now." Satoe chirped suddenly, causing the young couple to both jerk their heads to look at the two adults, who had finally extracted themselves from their sea of recollections.

"Yes Izzy, you're so much better than some of the other boys Mimi has seen before." Keisuke added with a nod.

"Oh here we go." Mimi muttered, but this time Izzy glimpsed a shadow of what could only have been a smirk race across her lips. Izzy, although slightly relieved, sighed to himself. There was still a long time until dessert.

* * *

Izzy had made himself comfortable on the living room couch, with Mimi beside him. They're hands, while no longer joined, sat perilously close to one another, with only the partition between the two cushions separating them. Despite the willingness of both of Mimi's parents to divulge next to everything they knew about her changing feeling towards him over the years, they had both managed to settle down and enjoy dinner. At the moment, the pair was just glad to have a moment of peace to themselves and were happy to spend it in silence. That moment, however, was fleeting.

"Mimi, dear, can you come and help me, please!" the girl's mother called out from the kitchen.

"Coming, Mum!" Mimi called back as she stood slowly from the couch.

She sighed, but gave Izzy a smile as she headed off to assist her mother. Izzy returned the smile, which lingered on his face even after she had disappeared around the corner.

"So Izzy, I can see you're very fond of Mimi." came the voice of the girl's father from off to the side.

Izzy jerked his head to see that Keisuke had emerged from the kitchen where he had been assisting his wife with the dishes, a job that appeared to have been taken over by his daughter. The man moved at a leisurely pace over to the closer of the two modest looking armchairs that sat on opposite sides of the living room, slowly seating himself and swivelling to face the boy. Izzy, for his part, felt his face heat up ever so slightly at the comment from Mimi's father. After surviving dinner, he had no idea why he was still feeling embarrassed when talk turned to his relationship with the girl, but the feeling was hanging around like a bad cough, surfacing at the mere mention of his feelings for her.

"Y-yes, Mr Tachikawa, very much so." Izzy replied, not looking the man in the eye but fixing his gaze at around neck height.

"I'm so glad to hear you say that." was Keisuke's reply.

Izzy blinked at that. He lifted his gaze ever so slightly and noticed for the first time that the man was beaming at him. This caught him a little by surprise. All through dinner, Izzy had thought that the two parents were being happy and bubbly because Mimi was in the room, and now that she was absent he had been expecting the 'serious father talk' that he had heard so much about. Now he was thinking that maybe, seeing how long he had known the Tachikawas, he had been a little too paranoid.

"It's so good to see my little girl happy." the man continued on, not waiting for the rather strangled reply from Izzy that was on its way.

The more he spoke, the less engaged he became with Izzy and the deeper into his own thoughts he delved. Very soon the conversation had turned into a chatty Keisuke, with Izzy just nodding and smiling awkwardly. In the midst of it all, he thought back to his memories of the old days that had been aroused by the talk over dinner. He remembered just how much like her parents Mimi used to be. She was still the bubbly, excitable, somewhat high class girl she always had been, but somewhere along the line she had managed to get her head screwed on straight, becoming the person he cared so much for now. This was something that, if he was honest, he could not say so confidently about her mother and father.

As he continued to watch Keisuke talk, Izzy admitted to himself that, no matter how much he liked them and no matter how nice they were, there was one thing that, as far as he could see, was undeniable. Mimi's parents were just a little crazy. But, he thought to himself as Keisuke prattled on, that was not necessarily a bad thing.

* * *

"Thanks for coming Izzy." Mimi said sweetly as she stood out in the hallway, bidding Izzy farewell for the night, "Sorry if Mum and Dad were a little… y'know, weird. It's just, kinda, how they are, I guess."

"Well they were really nice, so I guess I can't ask for much more." Izzy replied giddily, happy that the night had gone relatively smoothly despite all of his earlier worries. He also did not want her to think he disliked her parents.

"True." Mimi mused, before adding cheerily, "But I think next time it should be just the two of us."

"I think that's a fantastic idea." Izzy replied, nodding a little too enthusiastically.

Mimi just laughed at him and he could not help but snigger a little himself.

"I thought you said you liked my parents." she prodded slyly, smirking at him.

"I said they were nice…" Izzy offered jokingly, hoping that he had not overstepped the mark and been a bit offensive. When he received a giggle back, though, he inwardly breathed a small sigh of relief.

"Call me tomorrow." she said, smiling brightly in the semi-darkness on the dimly lit hallway.

Izzy nodded and she leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips before they bid each other good night. As Izzy made his way home he managed, for the first time in days, to clear his mind and just enjoy the peaceful stroll home. Things were really looking up.


	12. Chapter 12: Trouble in Paradise

**Sorry again everyone. Uni starts again for me tomorrow, so I've had to be preparing the last week. Anyway, here's the next chapter which I feel puts us on the home stretch of the story (a longish home stretch, but anyway). Hope you enjoy. Also thanks to Candified Smile, Koumi-Loc and DCLWLOKPR44424 for reviewing.**

"Which is weird, right? I mean… it's Davis! Since when is he ever nice to me?"

Mimi smirked at Yolei's completely bewildered exclamation. It was a cool Saturday afternoon and the two girls had met up at Aqua City, both to swap stories and to enjoy a few hours of shopping. The purple haired Digidestined had just finished recounting her Friday afternoon, when Davis had met her after school and offered to help her carry home her science project, a life-sized model of the digestive system.

While Davis and Yolei were friends, Mimi agreed that it was a little strange, as the friendship the two shared was as antagonistic as it was affable. They were as likely to be at each other's throats as they were to be having a regular conversation. For the moment though, Mimi was far too amused by Yolei's attitude to be bothered wondering why Davis up and helped her all of a sudden.

"It's just… why would he even do that? I just don't get it." Yolei wondered out loud, sounding just slightly hysterical as she pondered the Motamiya boy's actions.

Still grinning, Mimi leaned over toward her friend, narrowing her eyes and raising her eyebrows slightly.

"Who knows… maybe he likes you." Mimi said slyly, immediately getting the reaction she was hoping for.

"What!? Eww, no! That's… No!" Yolei shrieked, gaining the attention of several passers by.

Mimi burst out laughing, hunching over and clutching her stomach with one hand, while the other hung limply at her side. She tried to look up after a few moments, but the look of utter mortification which lingered on Yolei's face made her double over again as the waves of laughter again flooded forth from her. After another fifteen seconds, Mimi straightened up, her sides hurting a little from the hilarity.

"That was _not_ funny, Mimi." Yolei scolded her, hands on hips and wearing an expression of mixed relief and annoyance.

"Yes it was. You should have seen yourself." Mimi replied breathlessly, unable to wipe the grin off of her face.

"But seriously, why would Davis do all that for me? He never goes out of his way to help me out." Yolei pleaded, hoping for some insight.

The brunette thought to herself for a moment. As fascinating and adorable as it would be, Mimi had only been joking with her jab at Yolei. She was positive that Davis had no feelings for the girl beyond the complicated friendship they shared. As far as she could see, there was only one plausible reason for his behaviour.

"I guess he wants you to help him with something." Mimi suggested with a small shrug.

"What? Well he can forget it." Yolei declared, "Why would I help him out? Last time we all got together, he spilled his milkshake all over me."

"Which is probably why he wants to get on your good side, right?" Mimi posed rhetorically.

"Ooooohhh… right…" Yolei mumbled, "That actually makes sense."

The two fell silent for a few moments, Mimi waiting expectantly as Yolei appeared to have her head in the clouds.

"Well, whatever." the younger teen said eventually, seemingly eager to be done with the topic, "I'll just ask Ken and see if he knows what it is Davis wants. Anyway, how're you and Izzy going?"

Mimi stayed in silence as she entered into thought about her relationship with the Izumi boy. It had been almost two months since their first date, time that had, to Mimi, proven that she had made the right decision to get together with Izzy. But beyond her happiness, underneath her affection for him, something felt off. There was a small, niggling feeling at the back of her mind that kept her from being content. And, if she was honest with herself, she had, at least subconsciously, known that something like this would happen.

"Well? How are you two love birds?" Yolei prodded, grinning mischievously at the older girl.

"We're… going well." Mimi responded with some hesitation, receiving a confused expression from her friend.

"Wow, that sounded convincing." Yolei said sarcastically, but still it was possible to see a flash of concern in her eyes, "What's the matter? Has Izzy been too busy studying to see you or something?"

"No, no, it's not that. We've gone out plenty of times." Mimi insisted, shaking her head, "It's just…"

"Yes?" Yolei said expectantly.

Mimi was debating whether or not to let Yolei know. The purple haired teen was one of her closest friends, and while she had, in the past, been something like a to her protégé, Mimi had always listened to the younger girl's opinions, even going so far as to take advice from her on the odd occasion. On the other hand, Yolei was also very close to Izzy, on account of their shared computer club membership and the mutual hobby that this membership entailed. Added to the fact that Yolei had a well earned reputation as a blabbermouth, there was a real risk that anything Mimi said would find its way to her boyfriend, and this was not something she wanted him to start stressing over for the time being.

"Um…" Mimi murmured, biting her lip.

"Yes?" Yolei repeated, this time more urgently, her steps now having a little added bounce from the impatient energy she was holding in.

Mimi kept her mouth shut, still very much conflicted over whether to share her concerns with Yolei. The same points and counterpoints continually swirled around inside her head, pushing and pulling her between silence and honesty. She felt like she was balancing on a knife's edge, and that to fall on either side would leave her worse off than before. At the back of her mind, Mimi was surprised at how worked up she was over something that seemed so small, but at that moment she was far too caught up in her own embattled mind to concentrate on her own astonishment.

"Aww c'mon Mimi, just tell me." Yolei whined, "Please, please, please, please, please!"

Mimi grimaced. Persistence was Yolei's primary weapon against a tight lipped adversary, and the brunette knew she would face the full brunt of it if she chose not to talk. She knew exactly what to expect, after all, it was her favourite way of teasing information out of people as well. Figuring she may as well cut her losses and fess up, Mimi sighed and came to a halt just outside the sports store.

"Look, it's just…" she paused, unsure of how to word what she was trying to say.

"It's what?" Yolei probed, clearly desperate for Mimi to stay on track.

"He just doesn't want to do anything new." she blurted out, only to receive a quizzical look from her friend.

"Wait, what? He doesn't want to do anything? I thought you said you'd been out plenty of times." Yolei contested, furrowing her brow.

"No, I know, but it's all the same stuff." Mimi explained, "Like, I really enjoy movies and dinner and stuff like that, but I want to do something exciting, and every time I suggest something he changes the subject or comes up with an excuse or something."

"But he's never said 'no' to anything?" Yolei questioned.

"Well, no, but it's pretty obvious that's what he means." Mimi replied, her voice rising in pitch as she found herself becoming flustered.

"I guess, but maybe he's trying not to hurt your feelings by not denying you up front." Yolei suggested hopefully.

"But why doesn't he want to do something different with me? I know he's shy and all, but, I mean, he's been so much better recently, and plus he'll be with me. Is it really that hard?" Mimi demanded more passionately than she had intended.

Taking a small step back from where she stood, the girl slowly raised a hand to her mouth. It seemed that this was bothering her more than even she had thought.

"Well that's what you get for dating a massive introvert."

Both Mimi and Yolei jumped at the sound of a new voice entering their conversation, and like a pair of meerkats they frantically scanned their surroundings to find its source.

Behind them, Sora was standing just outside the sports store entrance, plastic bag in hand which held what looked to be a couple of metal tins which Mimi assumed were filled with brand new tennis balls. Sora wore a knowing smile as she surveyed the two girls, and she stood quite casually, leaning just slightly on her left side, suggesting that she had been there listening to them for some time.

"H-how long have you been there." Mimi stammered a little uncomfortably.

"Long enough." Sora replied with a smirk, causing Mimi to groan softly.

For her part, Yolei had backed up a step so she was no longer between the redhead and the brunette and was swivelling her head between the two older girls. After a few moments, however, Mimi saw that the younger teen's gaze was sticking to Sora, which she guessed probably meant that she was looking for the bearer of love's input in the discussion. Sure enough, Yolei soon piped up, sliding over towards her tennis ball toting friend.

"Hey Sora, you heard everything right?" Yolei queried eagerly.

As Sora nodded cheerfully and Yolei asked her opinion, Mimi sighed. She had barely wanted one person to know about this, let alone two. Now that Sora was aware, it was only a matter of time before Tai knew, and therein lay risks with Kari finding out, which led to T.K., and then Matt. Mimi shook her head. If this got back to Izzy, he would feel so guilty, and despite the frustration she had felt over the last couple of weeks that was the last thing she wanted.

"Well, the way I see it-" Sora began, but Mimi jumped in.

"Sora, I don't really want to talk about this here." she moaned.

The redhead barely missed a beat.

"OK, we can all just come pack to my place then. Plenty of privacy." she suggested with an ostensible innocence, but with an underlying hint of smugness.

"Perfect!" Yolei chirped and grabbed Mimi by the wrist.

"No, that's not what I-" Mimi tried to say, but it looked like Yolei was oblivious, while Sora did not seem to care about her objections.

So, their various purchases in tow, the three girls, two leading, one being dragged, headed out of Aqua City and towards the Takenouchi apartment as fast as Mimi's protests would allow. If she had not been so caught up in what was happening, the brunette might have found the whole situation amusing. In the past, it had always been her and Yolei dragging Sora away for a love life discussion. How the tables had turned.

* * *

Back here again, Mimi thought, as she was ushered into the same beanbag chair she had occupied the day after her first date with Izzy. Like that day, Sora had taken a place on her bed while Yolei took Tai's place on the desk chair. Mimi was almost thankful that Sora was there, as being interrogated by an unrestrained Yolei could be a trying experience. Then again, it was because of Sora's suggestion that she was now stuck here, so Mimi's gratitude only extended so far.

"Now, where were we?" Sora asked casually as she sat, leaning back on her elbows.

"You were about to tell moi how to manage her life." Mimi joked, hoping the humour would slow down the pace of the conversation.

While the other two girls both giggled at her quip, however, they were not to be deterred so easily. What Sora was to say, however, caught Mimi by surprise.

"Actually Mimi, having thought about it, I'm kind of surprised you're bothered by this." Sora commented matter-of-factly.

"Wha…?" was all Mimi could say in reply.

"Well yeah, I mean you know Izzy as well as anyone, probably better. You know how shy he is and I know that's one of the things you like about him." Sora explained, her eyes closed as if to communicate an air of conclusiveness to her statement.

"Yeah, I know… but he's been getting better. He's so much more relaxed now and I thought he might want to do some new things with me." Mimi blathered, trying to justify her feelings.

"True, but it's only been a few weeks, he's not going to do things at your pace all the time, Meems." Sora replied, now leaning forward and placing her hands in her lap.

"Hold on, what exactly have you been trying to get him to do?" Yolei asked all of a sudden.

The younger girl had been sitting quietly, watching who she saw as her two mentors. Mimi was surprised it had taken her this long to speak up.

"Um, I asked if he wanted to go to a party one of our classmates was having." she recounted, getting an immediate response.

"OK, let me stop you there. You know how much Izzy hates big parties." Sora argued a little disbelievingly.

"Yeah, well I didn't actually expect much with that one." Mimi murmured, becoming embarrassed.

"What else? What else?" Yolei demanded, looking excited at all the information she was receiving.

Mimi mumbled her next words, and the other two girls both leaned in, unable to hear her.

"C'mon, speak up." Sora said, laughing a little at Mimi's bashful expression.

"I asked if he wanted to have some dance lessons with me, OK." the Tachikawa girl blurted out and immediately drew her limbs back into herself.

At first her two friends looked as though someone had slapped them in the face all of a sudden, but after a few seconds they were rolling with laughter at what they had been told. Reluctantly, Mimi even managed to give her own nervous laugh to the chorus of mirth. After all, it was a strange thought, Izzy on a dance floor. A good half minute later, the laughing died down, Sora being the first to recover.

"Oh my gosh, that's so adorable!" she squeaked, breathing hard.

"I thought it would be romantic, and… yeah." Mimi said self-consciously, for some reason feeling that she had to justify herself.

"But come on. Izzy dancing? No wonder he tried to get out of it." Yolei commented, coming down off of her cuteness induced high.

"I know, but I would be with him." Mimi insisted, not giving up on her side of the story, "I know how he is, and I love how he's a bit more… ah…"

"Reserved?" Sora offered.

"Yeah." Mimi said, "But I still want to do new things with him. I wanna do something different."

Yolei frowned, while Sora nodded sympathetically. Mimi just sat there looking sullen. This had been what she was afraid of to begin with. It had not even been two months and their differences were already causing problems.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised." Mimi muttered what she thought was under her breath, "I had to do all the work when-"

"All the work when what?" Yolei jumped in, her curiosity surging forth again, as she had obviously heard what the brunette had thought was merely a whisper.

Mimi blinked before mentally smacking herself. She had run a blank and just started talking to herself. Now that she had Yolei's attention she would not soon hear the end of it. And, of all the things she could have pondered aloud, it had to be the more intimate one that she picked.

"C'mon Meems, what is it!?" Yolei prodded, "You can tell us! We won't tell anyone, I promise."

"Yeah Mimi, what did you have to 'do all the work' with?" Sora asked, her own curiosity having been piqued.

"Oh, it's nothing. Really." Mimi swore, speaking a little too quickly.

She could not see, but she was certain that her face would be burning red at that moment.

After several minutes of pestering, with each poke and prod becoming more and more irritating, Mimi was unsure of how much more she could take. She felt a great pressure under her cheeks, like her face was swelling in protest to every attempt to invade her privacy. This was not something she wanted to share, but she was effectively the prisoner of her two friends until she spilled all the information they wanted. Individually, she considered Sora to be merciful, and Yolei had too much respect for Mimi to keep up her constant barrage of questioning for as long as she had. Together, however, on the rare occasion it happened, the two were a ravenous pair of pseudo detectives. Mimi shuddered to think what it would be like if Kari were to join them.

After a small while, Mimi had had enough. The sooner she could get her two interrogators off her back, the better, she decided. Still, she was in no mood to tell them straight up, so she felt it better to be suggestive.

"Fine, um…" Mimi began abruptly, but stumbled almost immediately, "Well, ah… the other week, me and Izzy were-"

"Were?" Yolei interrupted excitedly, receiving a swift shushing from Sora.

"We were… we were watching movies over at his place." Mimi went on slowly, "His parents were out and so we had the place to ourselves."

"Oh, I see where this is going." Sora whispered devilishly, but Mimi still heard her and gulped before continuing.

"It was late and… I kinda wanted to do something and… and he was so hesitant, and we'd already kissed before." Mimi recalled, trying to be vague, but the two listeners needed nothing more specific than that.

"Oooooh, Mimi and Izzy sittin' in a tree…" Sora joked, while Yolei opened her mouth to finish the rhyme. Mimi, however, cut her off.

"Shut up. What are you, ten?" she said, burying her face in her knees, which she had drawn up to her chest.

It took Sora and Yolei about a minute to get everything out of their system, all the while with Mimi keeping her eyes fixed on her kneecaps. Suddenly, though, she felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked to her left to see that the redhead had moved over and taken a seat on the floor next to the beanbag. Sora gave her a reassuring smile.

"Hey, sorry about that, but you did the same thing when I told you about the first time me and Tai made out." she told the brunette sympathetically.

"Yeah, I guess." she admitted embarrassedly, guiltily remembering that conversation from a year ago, "I-I just feel so restricted… and I know he's trying, but still..."

"C'mon…" Sora said, rubbing Mimi's back and then giving it a pat, "You just need to be patient, remember Izzy's never been in a relationship before, so this is all new to him."

Mimi just nodded before sighing and leaning back into the beanbag.

"Look, if it bothers you so much then you should talk to him about it." the redhead advised, now sporting a serious look, while all the while Yolei was off in the background, nodding in agreement.

Mimi looked back at her friend. In truth, it was not Izzy's behaviour that bothered her most in all this. What was truly worrying her was her own reaction. It was insidious, lying just below the surface. As much as she had tried to tell herself before today that everything was fine, her frustration had bubbled to the top, and like the waters of a dam it had been released, only to be stemmed again moments later when she had realised and regained control of herself. Mimi knew it was not all down to her, but it made her uncomfortable to know how such a simple thing could get to her.

Sora must have read her mind, because the next moment she had redoubled her efforts as an advisor.

"Hey, remember what I told you at the coffee shop that day… before Izzy asked you out?" she asked, her voice coloured with compassion, but also betraying a small trace of worry.

From out of the corner of her eye, Mimi could see Yolei lean forward intently. For her part, the brunette nodded. How could she forget those words that had convinced her to take this chance?

"If I want it to work, then there's no reason it can't so long as I make an effort." Mimi recounted softly.

"So long as the both of you make an effort." Sora clarified.

"I'm sure Izzy is just as concerned about this as you are." Yolei offered optimistically.

"I hope so." Mimi said.

Little did she know, the purple haired girl was right.

* * *

Izzy walked briskly out of the lift towards the apartment door. It was rare enough he had come here once for advice, let alone twice in as many months. He just hoped that this time around he would hear something that he did not already know. As he arrived at the door he immediately knocked, and it took barely five seconds for it to open. Standing in the doorway, the young genius saw not one, but two teenage boys, both of whom wore identical, surprised expressions at having found him standing outside the apartment.

"Izzy? I wasn't expecting to see you today. Is something the matter? Is something wrong in the Digital World?" came a torrent of questions from Tai Kamiya as he stood with his hand still on the doorknob.

"Oh Tai, I didn't realise Matt was over. I can come back later." Izzy said, motioning to the blond as he mentioned him.

The Ishida boy waved his hand dismissively and Tai shook his head.

"Hey man, don't worry. Matt was just over here getting some movies off my computer." Tai explained, and the blond waved a small black removable hard drive in front of him, corroborating his friend's words.

"Oh… well, um, if you have time I, uh… I need some advice." Izzy revealed.

Both Tai and Matt smirked as those words left the redhead's mouth. They knew exactly what this advice would have to be about. Izzy grinned back at them a little uneasily before being swiftly guided into the apartment in the direction of Tai's room. He just hoped this was not as big a deal as he feared it might be.


	13. Chapter 13: Sweep Her Off Her Feet

**Hey everyone. Sorry I've taken longer than normal to get this chapter up, but I've needed to get used to my new timetable with uni, work and what remains of a social life all intermingling again. I think I've worked it all out, but two to three weeks is probably going to be the norm for updates, at best, but there's not long left to go with this story, so it's not all that bad. To the reviewers:**

**DCLWLOKPR44424: Yeah, not really. Mimi was 100% right when she said that Davis has no feelings for her and Yolei wasn't hiding anything either, but you'll see what it's all about.**

**Koumi-Loc: Yeah, it'd be the last thing Izzy would do, but maybe if someone did it to him – now that's something I would read.**

**Candified Smile: Thank you. I see so many doom and gloom stories (one of which I wrote) out there, not just FanFic-wise, but in pop culture in general (not that that's bad, mind you). It's nice to write something that's just simple and not super melodramatic (but still a little drama to keep it interesting).**

**Thanks also to PkmnMaster10 for the favourite.**

Feeling a little uneasy, but nonetheless grateful to be off his feet, Izzy plopped himself down on Tai's bed, the owner of which took his position by the door, leaning up against the wall, while their blond friend sat down sideways on the room's desk chair, placing his arm casually over the back of it. The room was somehow less messy than he remembered from the last time he had been there, which caught Izzy a little by surprise, but given that Tai was under the same roof as his parents it was not difficult to suppose why that might be. One other thing that Izzy had noted was that he had not seen Kari hanging around, a difference from the last couple of times that he had been to the Kamiya apartment, not that he had had much of an opportunity to converse with her either time. Gradually, the young genius felt his mind being dragged away from his random tangents and back to the present, as the two older teens stared intently at him, no doubt awaiting the request for which he had come here in the first place.

"So, let's hear it, Izzy." Tai prompted, folding his arms as he continued to lean up against the wall.

Getting his thoughts in order, Izzy decided it would be best to take the plunge, rather than drag things out. He was a little off put by Matt's presence, as he had only intended to speak with Tai. However, so long as the blond took him seriously, which Izzy trusted he would, then it was possible to see some good coming of a second opinion.

"I… I think I might have made a serious mistake." Izzy confessed, shifting uncomfortably where he sat.

"Well, that sucks Iz, but a little more info would be nice." Matt said dryly, swinging his forearm slowing back and forth as it lay draped over the back of the chair.

How to put this into words, Izzy thought. At best, he barely trusted his own intuition when it came to relationships, and if he was honest that was all that had him worried. Mimi had seemed to be fine with everything over the past few weeks. She certainly had not said anything, and usually that was something that everyone had come to expect her to do if she was upset, angry or frustrated with something or someone; she rarely held back if she was. But underneath it all, Izzy could feel something, a discomfort, perhaps even resentment, in her. Every time he felt it, one of his eyes would twitch, as if stung by something. It could all have been his imagination, which he hoped it was, but he wanted to be sure, hopefully without tipping her off and either making the problem worse or creating an entirely new one.

"Ah, well, I'm getting the feeling that Mimi's not too happy with me." Izzy tried to explain, balling his hands into fists as they lay in his lap, "I mean, she hasn't spoken to me about it, s-so this could all be my imagination… but, um, y'know, I'm… I think that there's something that she refuses to tell me. A-and I'm not saying I don't have trust in her, b-but then of course you don't always speak your mind, so…"

He was rambling. The more he thought about it, the less sense it all made. Mimi had never said anything to suggest that something was wrong, but Izzy knew within himself that this was not true. But then again, what would she have to gain from not telling him if she was unhappy with anything he had done? Izzy had opened himself up to her over the past weeks, and she knew that she could tell him anything, especially anything that was bothering her. Or at least he thought she knew that.

Izzy was no fool, and he was well aware of how people worked. After all, Izzy himself was just as human as everyone else. Yet still, he had to admit that it was all ultimately confusing. Logic was his language, not this.

"Izzy, Izzy, slow down." Tai said waving his hand out in front of him.

"Urgh, I just don't get it. I'm trying to figure out what's going on with us, but she hasn't said anything and I just don't know." Izzy complained.

"Well, is there anything in particular that makes you think all of this?" Matt questioned keenly, clearly eager to get to the bottom of the matter.

Izzy thought briefly about this. To his recollection of the past couple of weeks, he would sense something in her whenever they happened to be planning where they were going to go out to next. At school, or when they were on dates, he would rarely if ever get the same feeling, that Mimi was unhappy or frustrated.

"I… it just seems that, whenever we're figuring out where we want to go out to next, I get this feeling that she's angry with me or something." Izzy offered, trying his best to get his thoughts across.

"Um, okay…" Matt said, scratching his head.

"Any idea why that might be?" Tai asked.

"Ummm…" Izzy mumbled, trying to think.

He had been fairly insistent on their destinations in each discussion. Of course, Mimi never seemed to have a problem when they were actually on their dates, so why would that be the problem? But, then again, what else could it be?

"Ah, I guess it might be because I tend to pick where we go." Izzy voiced his only idea, rubbing the back of his head.

His two friends immediately exchanged glances. Izzy could tell that they had both had the same thought and, as their gazes returned to him, he could feel a lump forming in his throat. The two of them wore a stern, searching look, their lips pursed and their eyes narrowed. It was like they were staring straight through him, as if he were a ghost, completely transparent. It seemed like they had found their answer.

"Tell me, Izzy," Matt said evenly, raising his eyebrows, "did Mimi have any suggestions of her own?"

Izzy cringed at the thought that, somewhat surprisingly to him, his intuition had been correct.

"Y-yeah." he confirmed shakily.

"Yep, there you go." Tai announced, throwing his hands in the air.

"Geez, big no no, Izzy." Matt commented while shaking his head.

"Y-you sure?" the Izumi boy asked, even though he already knew they were right.

"Dude!" Tai exclaimed, "You can't just do everything your way all the time."

"Yeah, there're two people in a relationship for a reason." Matt affirmed, gesturing with an open palm and closing his eyes as he spoke.

Of course they were right, Izzy thought. He could feel the blood rushing to his face as he sat there, now clearly recognising his own stupidity. He had known something was not quite right. Surely it should have been obvious why. He had even said to himself that it could not have possibly been anything else. Yet, for some unfathomable reason, he thought bitterly, he had refused to accept it.

But it was not only Izzy's foolishness that embarrassed and frustrated him. He had been so selfish. All the time he had known what he was doing, but every time, he could distinctly remember, there was a dark, heavy, almost churning sensation deep in his gut. The mere thought of following one of Mimi's date suggestions set him off and that unbearable feeling, reaching from his stomach all the way up his spine, would force him away, back to his comfort zone. It was like his desire to be with Mimi, to truly be with her in mind as well as reality, was being held back by some invisible hand.

"C'mon Izzy, this is common sense stuff." Tai said disapprovingly, and all the Izumi boy could do was nod in embarrassment and shame.

"I… I just wasn't positive." Izzy tried to explain, "I mean, she wanted us to go to some dance classes and... If she'd said something-"

"Iz, she shouldn't have had to." Matt interrupted, doing well to suppress a laugh at the mention of dance classes, a feat Tai was unable to manage, "Look, I get that people can be hard to read some-… well, a lot of the time actually, and it really does annoys me. But c'mon, with this it shouldn't need to be in black and white."

Again, all Izzy could do was nod shamefully at what he was being told. Matt knew what he was talking about and, remembering what Tai had said about the blond and girls a few weeks back, the redhead felt that, at least so far as relationships went, the two had faced similar problems. Perhaps Tai was not the only one he could turn to for advice on things like this.

"Thanks Matt." Izzy said humbly, "I know that Tai's said you've had some problems before, so I feel that I ca-"

"Wait, wait, wait. What has Tai been telling you?" Matt cut him off, flashing a menacing glance at his bushy haired friend.

"Uh, not the best time, I-" Tai tried to say, voice slightly shaky and a little higher than normal, but Matt was in no mood to let this slide.

"No, no." Matt cut across his friend with an unnerving calmness, "I want to hear this."

Izzy looked between his two friends. The tension in the air was mounting, and Matt looked like a gangster staring down a newly discovered snitch, and the snitch in this case appeared to have a very good idea about what the blond wanted to do to him.

"Izzy…" Matt stated with a deceptive coolness, prompting the Bearer of Knowledge to reveal what he knew.

"Umm, Tai just mentioned that you'd, ah… you'd been waiting for a… a young lady to… to confess some, er, romantic feelings for you…" Izzy told him carefully. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see Tai shaking his head and mouthing 'no' at him.

As Izzy finished speaking, he saw Matt flinch ever so slightly, like he had received a small pinprick on one of his hands. Slowly, the Bearer of Friendship, a title and responsibility which Izzy hoped his friend would remember, turned to face the third Digidestined in the room.

"Tai… I told you not to say anything about Tamiko." Matt said through gritted teeth, his annoyance at the highest level that Izzy had seen recently.

"Her name's Tamiko?" Izzy blurted out without thinking and quickly slapped a hand to his mouth. Matt, however had heard him.

"Dammit." The blond growled, but then he chuckled darkly, "Tai, you are so-"

"Wow, I'm thirsty!" Tai exclaimed hastily, obviously desperate to avoid the black eye he was expecting to receive inside of five seconds, "How 'bout I go get us all something to drink?"

"Kamiya, you're not getting out of this that easily." Matt warned, making to get up from his chair.

Tai, however, was too quick, bounding out to the kitchen, throwing the door closed as he went.

"You two keep talking while I'm gone." the brown haired teen stated hurriedly as he sprang through the doorway.

Matt and Izzy just blinked. They sat in silence for a few seconds before, to Izzy's great surprise, the blond started laughing. The young genius stared at his friend as if he had just grown a second head, wondering where on earth such a swift mood change had come from.

"Umm, Matt?" Izzy said, taken aback.

The older teen quickly calmed down and returned his gaze to Izzy, the menace and unsettling calm now completely absent from him.

"There's nothing quite like scaring the pants off Tai."

* * *

Tai rushed over to the kitchen before propping himself up against the bench top and letting out a sigh of relief. In retrospect, letting slip personal confessions that Matt had made to him probably was not the best idea in the world, Tai thought to himself. He did get the feeling that the blond was exaggerating a bit, given that it had been some time since he had told Tai about that particular girl, but, remembering how easily they had managed to get into scuffles in the past, getting out of that room was probably the right move.

Deciding it was best to be safe and let things cool down, Tai made his way over to the fridge and started rummaging around. He may as well make his excuse legitimate and actually get them all something to drink, he thought. After pushing aside a carton of milk and a six pack of yoghurt, Tai found a container of one of his mother's 'experimental' dishes; leek and capsicum cake. Tai wrinkled his nose when he saw it. He knew his mother could cook, but her insistence on testing some of the most bizarre cookery combinations ever to be attempted made her something of a culinary mad scientist. Moving aside the container, as well as some sickening memories, Tai came upon what he was looking for. Four cans of soda sat tightly together in the back corner of the fridge. He and Kari were supposed to share these evenly between themselves, he remembered, and he was sure that his little sister would not appreciate him taking more than his fair share. But still, Tai reasoned, he had guests over and it was not like he could not just replace one of them later. She would never notice. So, with a self-satisfied smile on his face, Tai grabbed three of the cans and closed the fridge door.

Just as he did so, he heard the front door open followed by two voices flowing in from the hallway. It seemed that Kari and T.K. had returned from wherever they had snuck off to that morning. Tai was about to go out and greet them, but as soon as he heard what they were saying he stopped dead in his tracks.

"How much longer do you think Davis is gonna keep it up?" came T.K.'s slightly lowered voice from around the corner.

"Hopefully for a little while longer." Kari replied, her voice also lowered, "It's so much more peaceful this way."

Tai could only guess that they did not want to be heard so, thinking quickly, he vaulted the kitchen bench, soda cans in hand, and landed in the adjoined living room. Quiet as a whisper and grinning madly, he took cover behind the couch and pricked up his ears, eager to hear more and hopefully score some dirt on the young pair.

The two seemed to stop talking for a few seconds, but still Tai held to his position, willing them to continue. Then he heard a click, which told him that they had opened and entered Kari's bedroom. Raising his head slowly out of cover, Tai saw that they were indeed no longer out in the hall or in the living room. His eyes then fell on his sister's bedroom door and his already mischievous grin widened when he noticed that it was ajar.

Moving stealthily over to it, imagining for the moment that he was in a video game, Tai crouched just outside the room and moved his head as close to the gap in the doorway as possible without sticking some of the extremities of his hair through it. As luck would have it, both T.K. and Kari were now speaking at normal volume, giving him no trouble in hearing every word they said. He listened intently as the conversation they had started at the front door continued.

"Still, if you hadn't found out that Davis was the one who popped Ken's soccer ball, then we'd never've gotten him to be nice to Yolei." Tai heard Kari say.

"He's probably not gonna be too happy with us for a while, y'know." T.K. replied, perhaps a little regretfully if Tai was hearing him right.

"Yeah." Kari agreed guiltily, but then adding in a higher, cheerier voice, "But it'll do them some good. I mean they're always fighting and maybe Davis being nice to her will make things better permanently."

"You really believe that?" T.K. questioned, his tone sceptical.

"A girl can dream, can't she?" Tai's little sister replied and the pair could be heard laughing.

So Davis was getting blackmailed, Tai noted. While he felt for the younger teen, he also felt himself agreeing with the conniving duo on the other side of the doorway. After all, Davis and Yolei's relationship was far from what most sane people would call friendship, and they had been mistaken as bitter enemies by more than a few people. Even if it was forced, Tai could not help but think that a bit more camaraderie between the two would not hurt, even if it was artificial.

Still, he wished his sister could have found a better way to do it. She meant well, and there was no way that she would ever intend to hurt anybody, much less a friend, but recently the girl, along with T.K., had been a little to nosy for Tai's tastes. He chuckled quietly to himself. He probably just disapproved because a great deal of his sister's 'innocent' blackmailing and secret-revealing was directed at him, especially if it concerned such important matters as her getting the last ice cream in the freezer, or embarrassing him and Sora by sharing details of some of their gooier conversations with all of their friends.

"But we still have to figure out what we're gonna do about, er… y'know."

Tai's head made a small twitch as he heard T.K.'s words, refocusing his attention on the gap in the doorway.

"Our other… problem." came Kari's reply.

Tai could feel his excitement mounting. Smirking, he thought that maybe, just for a bit of fun, he could give Kari and T.K. a taste of their own medicine. Even better, he could let Sora in on his little reprisal against the pair that so loved to spy on them. As he continued to listen to their discussion, his smile grew wider and wider.

"Oh ho, it's payback time." Tai whispered gleefully to himself, "Wait 'til Sora hears about this."

* * *

"You had me a little nervous there for a moment." Izzy breathed, relieved at Matt's indifference to Tai's sharing of his private business.

"Well, if he'd told you last year when all of this actually happened, I might have actually cared." Matt replied with a self-satisfied chuckle, "Just don't tell him that, OK?"

Izzy nodded and responded with a chuckle of his own. He may have been just as oblivious to Matt's ruse as Tai was, but now that he knew he could appreciate the joke, and seeing as the joke was not on him he was totally fine with it. Izzy's dry sense of humour was a far cry from Matt or Tai's more elaborate one, but he was always happy to participate in their tricks and pranks, or at least the ones that most people would consider sane.

"Anyway, let's get back to your problem." Matt suggested casually, resuming his seat in the exact same position as before.

Izzy grimaced. He felt worse the more he thought about it. Mimi had to be so mad at him; how could she not be?

"Urgh, what do I. Mimi must hate me right now." Izzy whined, losing himself to self-pity and dread.

"Hey c'mon, don't overreact, man." Matt replied, straightening in his chair, "You know as well as I do that Mimi can be crazy, but it takes a lot for her to hate you."

Izzy felt a slight twinge in his face when he heard the word 'crazy' being applied to Mimi, but he ignored it. Matt was right, but that did not fix the problem.

"Well then, what should I do to try and make amends?" Izzy pleaded, hoping for some advice.

Matt just smiled at him.

"Easy, I've got you covered, Iz." Matt told him keenly.

Izzy recoiled a little. The blond had not even taken a second to think. Quick as a flash he had found what the redhead hoped was the solution to his problem. Like an excited and barely contained child, he leaned forward in anticipation.

"What you've got to do is simple." Matt explained, raising a finger before pointing it at the young genius, "You, being the good and caring boyfriend that you are, take her out to the dance classes she suggested."

Izzy almost fell forward onto the floor. That was not what he had been expecting, and as soon as he heard the word 'dance' he started gapping like a fish out of water, and he felt the dark churning begin in his stomach.

"I… I… dance, wha-… but-" Izzy spluttered feverishly, fighting to form words with little success.

"Mimi's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks time, so then would be the perfect opportunity." Matt continued on, ignoring his friend's utter shock.

"B-b-but…" Izzy tried to protest, but the blond was in little mood to deal with resistance.

"Izzy, I'll lay this out for you, plain and simple." Matt said matter-of-factly, "You owe Mimi. You also really like Mimi and want to stay in a relationship with her, and as far as I can tell she feels the same about you. You also need to get used to doing things that she likes some of the time. So, kill two birds with one stone, sweep her off her feet with this and everything will be fine."

Izzy just stared back at him. It made sense, that he could not deny. Nevertheless, he could still feel that horrible sensation deep within him, a crippling, stirring weight that held him back. He wanted to do this for Mimi. Yet, deep down, something was still rooting him to the spot in safe, comfortable, familiar surrounds. He hated that feeling, and what it did to him. He did not want it to ruin what he was trying to build with Mimi.

"I…" Izzy squeaked, but no more words came.

"Look, you've got two weeks, man, that's plenty of time to psyche yourself up for this." Matt said supportively, rising from the chair and moving to place and hand on Izzy's shoulder.

The redheaded nodded slowly. Two weeks. He had time. Time to fight the inner battle he needed to. He had found the courage to ask Mimi out in the first place. This was just the next step, and he had time, time to prepare.

He had to laugh at himself. Of all the challenges he had ever faced, few had made him seize up, and now it was happening over dance classes with his girlfriend. He had to wonder how he ever made it through their adventures in the Digital World.

Just at that moment, Tai came bursting through the doorway, three soda cans in hand and looking like a balloon inflated well beyond capacity. As soon as the door was shut, the teen burst out laughing, doubling over before backing into the wall and sliding down to the ground. Matt and Izzy just gazed at him, completely dumbfounded.

After Tai had calmed down, he handed both boys a soda each, keeping the last for himself. They both accepted them, not for a second taking their eyes off of their bushy haired friend. Matt finally spoke up.

"Um, is it worth asking?" the blond queried, raising an eyebrow.

"Probably not." Tai replied with a large smirk, seeming to have momentarily forgotten Matt's earlier hostility towards him, "How'd you guys go in here?"

Matt looked over to Izzy and smiled, which the redhead emulated, if a little nervously. The blond then turned back to Tai to reply.

"Guess who's going dancing."


	14. Chapter 14: What Have They Been Up To?

**Sorry everyone, had massive writer's block with this chapter and I'm a little concerned with how it turned out. I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks to Koumi-Loc, James Birdsong and BluePinkFlowers for reviewing and to letitri and Wallz for following and/or favouriting.**

The sun shone vibrantly through the thick clouds, sending a gentle warmth down to the pavement below. The rain of the last few days had subsided, and while a dense, light grey cloudbank still remained in the sky, it too showed signs that it was receding. All of this was, however, completely lost on Mimi, who was far more preoccupied with her own worries to appreciate the clearing skies above.

For the time being she had taken solace in her friends as she walked home from school. While Yolei or Izzy were normally the ones to accompany her, both had a computer club meeting to attend. Today it was Sora and Tai along for the ride and, with her boyfriend absent, Mimi felt that this would be a good opportunity to vent. Normally she would have only been comfortable sharing relationship issues with Sora or Yolei but, as certainly as the moon would rise that night, the redhead would share everything she knew with Tai, so he might as well hear it directly from the source and have done with it, Mimi figured. With the amount of information the two shared, and considering how long they had known each other, it was almost like the pair had a collective memory.

"So, how're your 'Izzy issues'?" Sora asked tentatively as they walked along, unaware of how much Mimi wanted to get off her chest.

"Still the same as last weekend." the brunette sighed, simply assuming that Tai already knew about her talk with his girlfriend and Yolei the previous Saturday. Judging from his lack of confusion, she was right to have presumed.

"You haven't talked to him about it yet?" Sora pressed.

At first Mimi thought there was something behind the concern she heard in her friend's voice, but she shrugged it off as her imagination before considering her answer. She had wanted to try to communicate more openly with Izzy about their relationship, she had promised herself that she would. The problem was that she had not had very much alone time with him since she had made that resolution. Every day at school they were surrounded by the Digidestined and their other friends. Walking home that week they had always had Yolei with them, and Mimi's apartment was always the first one they reached. Add to this a major assignment dump from their teachers that week and the couple was left with very little time for just the two of them.

"I've wanted to, but it's been so hard to find some private time." Mimi told the couple, leaning her head back to stare at the patchy grey and blue sky.

"Oh, OK." Sora replied evenly, "Maybe you should, y'know, put that little talk on hold for now."

Mimi raised an eyebrow. Why was the redhead telling her to wait? That was the exact opposite of what her two friends had advised her to do the week before. Something felt off.

"But the longer I wait, the longer this will drag on for." The brunette pointed out, "It was your idea, after all, Sora."

"Well yeah, but me and Sora've got to talking the last week," Tai interjected a little hurriedly, taking over from his girlfriend, "and we both think that, since you and Izzy are working so hard and under a lot of stress and everything, that…"

"That it might not be best to get into your issues until you're more relaxed and have more time and everything." Sora insisted, picking up where Tai trailed off.

Mimi rolled her eyes. Of course the pair had been discussing her and Izzy between themselves. But then she considered what they had said to her. They made sense, Mimi thought to herself. Still, the couple seemed just a little flustered, and she had to wonder whether there was more to what they were saying. For now, though, she was in little mood to pick either of their stubborn brains. She would get to the bottom of it later.

"If you're both sure..." Mimi relented.

"Yeah, just another week." Sora responded, more calmly this time, before giving her a pat on the shoulder.

"I just want everything to be alright between us." Mimi said soulfully, more to herself than to her two friends.

"Hey, don't worry, everything'll be fine. Trust me." Sora replied supportively, flashing a warm smile which was mirrored by Tai.

Mimi gave a small chuckle at the sight of the two wearing identical grins.

"OK, I guess you're right." she agreed.

But still, the rest of the way to her apartment, Mimi eyed the couple suspiciously. They meant well, but she knew they were up to something. The only question was what.

* * *

"Friday night at eight-thirty? Thank you. Yes, bye." Izzy placed the phone down on the bench and turned back to face the blond who had so kindly taken the time help him plan for and set up events for Mimi's birthday.

Unbeknownst to the others, Izzy had skipped out on the computer club meeting, leaving his deputy, a girl in his year named Shoko, to take care of running things that particular afternoon. He felt a little guilty for having done so, particularly because he had only given a few hours notice, but just this once he really needed the spare time. Plus Matt had only been available that day, and Izzy could not have even contemplated doing it all on his own without someone standing behind him, making sure that he did it. Lucky for him, the older teen had been willing to go at a steady pace and was happy to let Izzy do most of the work, just making sure that the redhead did not chicken out.

"All good." Matt asked, his arms folded as he leaned casually up against the wall, regarding Izzy with a relaxed and satisfied look.

Izzy nodded slowly. He had just made the booking for a one off dance class with Mimi for the coming Friday. He was still stressing over the whole situation, but what he had heard over the phone was encouraging. Apparently the place they would be going to was small with only limited groups of no more than half a dozen couples. Moreover, they catered for all levels of experience and, because of the small class sizes, were able to give each couple as much, or as little, attention as they needed or wanted. At least if Izzy was going to embarrass himself it would only be in front of a few people and the expectations were not really very high anyway.

"So how did it all sound? Not too hard for you?" Matt questioned sympathetically, flashing a laid back smile.

"No, it's a pretty private place, so it's not all that bad." Izzy answered calmly, but he still felt his cheeks warm up slightly.

"Well that's perfect then." Matt commented happily, "Now you can take Mimi somewhere she wants and not have to jump straight into the deep end, if you catch my drift."

"Yeah." Izzy replied simply, giving another slow nod.

"Excellent. Alright, now we move onto wardrobe." Matt declared with a grin.

Izzy groaned. He knew that the more he could get done with Matt that afternoon the better, but he was at least confident that he could dress himself. He was not that bad.

"Matt, I am able to pick out something to wear. We don't really have to bother with all that…" Izzy said lethargically, hoping that they could move onto something a bit more pressing, for instance Mimi's present.

"I wouldn't get too confident Iz, but what did you have in mind then?" Matt challenged, his grin changing to an amused smirk.

Izzy did his best to ignore Matt's remark. "Well, I haven't picked out a birthday gift yet, so if you could help-" he tried to explain, but the blond cut across him.

"No, no, no. That, my friend, is all your responsibility." Matt stated matter-of-factly, holding up an index finger.

"What, why?" Izzy protested.

"That present has to be all you. The thought, the time, the presentation. Everything." Matt explained, nodding his head as if to agree with himself as he did, "Think of it as a personal challenge to see how well you really know her."

Izzy cringed. He thought he knew Mimi well enough, but, at the same time, gift giving was not his strong point. There were of course some people who had obvious present ideas. Tai and Davis, for instance, were easy to pick for because they would be happy with anything vaguely soccer related, or Joe who always wanted something practical, like a personal planner or nice new wallet.

Mimi, on the other hand, was a different story. Izzy knew the things she was into, mostly movies and fashion, but as to specific things that he could get her, the young genius was completely lost in a sea of possible treasures and potential disasters. Izzy cringed as he remembered the debacle that Tai and Sora had gone through a few years back with 'the hairclip', a temporarily backfired birthday gift from the former to the latter that had sparked one of their longest, and pettiest, fights. Sure, they were no longer twelve years old, and it was more the way that Tai had given the gift to Sora as opposed to what it was, but Izzy still felt a prickling nervousness that threatened to bubble like magma to the surface.

"But it's not that-" Izzy weakly tried to argue, but Matt was not interested.

"Non-negotiable, Izzy." he stated firmly, "Now c'mon, we're picking your outfit."

Izzy wrinkled his nose at this, feeling a sudden indignation at Matt implying that he was not able to dress himself appropriately for something.

"This is a waste of time, I don't need assistance with picking what to wear." the redhead insisted, yet he still followed Matt to his room, albeit reluctantly and with heavy, grudging steps.

"Yeah you do." Matt replied with a laugh, "Why else would you need me then?"

Izzy sighed as he sat himself down on his bed while the blond rummaged through his wardrobe. He swore that Matt was being unusually overzealous with this. He had never seen the teenage rock star try this hard to help him out with something that did not concern the Digital World, and the emphasis was on 'try'. Either way, the older boy seemed to be getting a kick out of it, which amused but also concerned Izzy.

"Matt, all of this that you're doing for me, I mean I really appreciate it all, but you've done enough for now." he told his friend, hoping he would get the picture.

On the upside, Matt seemed to get it. On the downside, though, he did not seem to care all that much. The blond just swivelled his head around and smirked.

"Well too bad, you're stuck with me until I'm satisfied you're all ready to go for Friday." he remarked haughtily, doing his best to sound snooty and strict, but in the end he could not help but laugh at himself.

Izzy snorted and shook his head. He had no idea why Matt was so insistent, but at least he was not taking himself seriously.

* * *

"You think she'll pick up on it?" Tai asked as he and Sora ascended towards his apartment.

"Mmm, probably not." Sora replied after giving it some thought, "She seemed a little suspicious, but I doubt she'd guess what Izzy's planning to do."

"I guess you're right." Tai replied, nodding his head.

"And by the way, it was a pretty good idea. I'm impressed." the redhead added, giving Tai an approving smile.

"Heh, it was actually Matt who thought of getting Izzy to do all this. I wasn't even in the room at the time." he admitted, rubbing the back of his head and flashing a grin at his girlfriend.

"My, my, this is a historic moment." Sora quipped, chuckling slightly.

"What?" Tai queried, shrugging his shoulders and giving her a sceptical look.

"The great Tai Kamiya actually gives someone else the credit? Like that's happened before." Sora explained before bursting out with a full laugh, only pausing to add, "I should document this."

Tai just laughed along with her. He probably should have seen that one coming. Eventually they walked out onto the landing and approached the Kamiya's front door.

"So are T.K. and Kari going to be in this afternoon?" Sora asked after they had both calmed down.

"They should be. T.K. usually stops by for a couple of hours after school before he heads to his Dad and Matt's place." Tai replied.

Sora immediately began chuckling evilly and Tai formed a menacing grin to match.

"Perfect." the redhead said gleefully, "You sure what you overheard is true?"

"Has to be." Tai assured her, "They had no clue I was listening in and they were shut in her room at the time."

"Ha, excellent." Sora declared, "I love them both to bits, but I think it's about time they both learned a valuable lesson in personal privacy."

"Agreed." Tai replied cheerfully with a nod as he opened the front door to the apartment and they both entered the quiet Kamiya residence.

They both stood just inside the doorway for a few moments, listening as best they could and hoping to hear the sound of the two secretive teenagers they were after. At first it was silent enough to hear a pin drop, but soon the smallest sounds of chatter could be heard from further inside the apartment. It was muffled, coming from behind a closed door, and if Tai and Sora had been making any real noise they might well have missed it.

The couple looked at each other, both with eyebrows raised.

"They wouldn't have gone this afternoon too? School only finished forty-five minutes ago." Sora whispered, darting her eyes back and forth from Tai to the interior of the apartment, towards the bedroom door of the younger Kamiya sibling.

"Either they went straight from school, or they've been skipping classes." Tai whispered back, an amused smirk on his face.

The pair edged their way noiselessly towards Kari's bedroom door before coming to a halt just outside it. Now that they were closer, the muffled voices of the younger teens, who Tai and Sora knew were inside, were almost clear enough to make out, and it if they were hearing them correctly the voices' owners would be coming out in a moment. They did not have to wait long for them to emerge, as the door swung open to reveal the momentarily cheerful faces of Kari and T.K., which instantly morphed to looks of shock as they both recoiled at the sight of the older pair.

"Gahh! Tai!? Sora!?" Kari and T.K. both yelped, causing the two other teens to burst out laughing.

"S-since when have you two been here?" T.K. asked nervously, beginning to wring his hands as Tai and Sora both started to calm down.

"Oh, we just got back." the redhead informed them, still giggling lightly as she folded her arms.

"Mmm, we were hoping to run into the both of you, but we weren't really expecting to catch you at it." Tai gloated with a smirk.

"What's that supposed to mean." Kari said defensively, not managing to look her brother or his girlfriend in the eye.

"Well first of all, skipping classes isn't something I think either of your parents would be happy with." Sora offered, smiling and shaking her head as she did.

"We've only done it this one t-" T.K. said softly, but was cut off by the young brunette.

"What would make you think that?" Kari blurted out, hoping in vain she had drowned out the blond's slip up, but to no avail as Tai and Sora both let out self-satisfied chuckles.

Kari groaned loudly and T.K. shuffled uncomfortably where he stood. Sora noticed the boy mouth a soundless apology to the Kamiya girl, to which she responded with a likewise wordless acceptance. She and Tai were not yet done, however.

"Well, seeing as you asked, dear sister, we had to figure that it was the only way you two could have snuck off to the Digital World and gotten back home before me and Sora showed up here." Tai explained, still with a smirk on his face.

"So what if we've been to the Digital World?" Kari said nervously, no longer even bothering to hide where they had been.

"What if I told you that we know that you two've been going there pretty regularly?" Tai questioned rhetorically, leaning in closer to the younger pair.

"And that all those times you two'd supposedly been 'studying', you were really sneaking off to the Digital World…" Sora added, mirroring Tai's movements with a disturbingly cheery grin on her face. The grin only widened when she saw the younger duo's looks of nervousness turn to ones of defeat. They must now have realised how much she and Tai had to know. Shifting her eyes to the brunette, Sora saw her shoulders lower as she sighed.

"When and how?" Kari asked resignedly.

"Last weekend, and you two should really be more careful when you leave that bedroom door hanging open." Tai replied assuredly.

Sora could see T.K. readying himself to speak. Knowing what he was about to say, she jumped in, barely holding back a snicker.

"And before you ask, we know all about the accident you had with Gennai's house a couple of weeks ago." Sora revealed, shaking her head in mock disappointment.

"Yeah, how did you two manage to tick off an entire herd of Monochromon and then end up leading them to Gennai's place? I mean… it's underwater!" Tai exclaimed, waving his arms above his head.

"Well, Gatomon and Patamon weren't there to protect us 'cos we were going to meet at Gennai's, so we kinda opened up the stairs and just ran in without bringing the lake back down over them. We didn't really have anywhere else to run to…" T.K. explained, bringing his right forearm across his front to hold the opposite elbow as he stared down at the floor.

"But we didn't even do anything, I swear! We just landed close to them when we came through the portal and they charged at us." Kari insisted defensively, but was unable to hide her own shame, "We didn't mean to cause any of this."

Sora felt a pang of sympathy shoot through her. The two never meant to cause any damage. It really could have happened to any of them. Unfortunately for Kari and T.K., however, it had happened to them, and the younger duo had either blackmailed them over or simply revealed too many of her and Tai's secrets for them to get away with this. Sora did feel sorry for them, but the universe needed to be balanced out.

"What exactly happened to the Monochromon? I never caught that part." Tai questioned.

"Well, they may've been a bit sore afterwards, but they ended up safely back in their territory, care of Pegasusmon and Nefertimon." Kari replied, "We tried our best not to hurt them, they didn't know any better."

"At least you two are putting everything right. I did overhear you correctly last weekend, didn't I? You've been helping to fix the house for the past week?" Tai asked, looking back and forth between the pair.

"Yeah. We had everything set up to keep working this afternoon, we just came back to get grab some food and water." T.K. informed them, his voice a little higher than normal as if he were hoping that his and Kari's good will might get them off the hook.

"Well that's good to hear." Tai approved, nodding his head.

"Buuuuuuuut…" Sora added with a smirk, "we can't just let you two get away with this, now can we."

T.K. and Kari both paled, colour disappearing from their faces leaving them white as ghosts. The brunette started spluttering, while her best friend began pleading with the older couple, a position that was normally reversed.

"Please you guys, don't tell anyone. Matt and Davis'll never let us live it down!" he begged, making every gesture possible short of getting on his knees.

"By 'never let _us_ live it down', I'm assuming you meant 'never let _you_ live it down'." Tai pointed out.

"It'll be embarrassing for both of us!" he retorted, Kari nodding vigorously all the while, "C'mon, can't you two just keep this one between us?"

Tai and Sora both smiled mischievously at each other.

"I dunno, T.K., this is pretty big news." Tai said cheekily, shrugging his shoulders.

"Yeah, I think everyone else has a right to know." Sora added with a giggle.

T.K. and Kari both sighed.

"What do you want?" they both asked simultaneously, the voices ringing with defeat.

Tai and Sora grinned triumphantly at one another, before turning back to the younger pair and speaking in unison.

"Weeeeelll…"

* * *

Mimi fell back onto her bed, bouncing lightly before coming to rest after a couple of seconds. She brushed several strands of her hair out of her eyes and stared directly up at the ceiling, intently focusing on it as though she could see through to the starry sky above. She had just gotten off the phone with Izzy, and while her mood was lightened from their talk, her smile could only stretch so wide. As had been a feature of the last couple of weeks, even the smallest disquiet kept her from contentedness.

Izzy had quite sweetly proposed to take her out that Friday evening to celebrate her birthday. Mimi was grateful, there was no way she would not be, but at the back of her mind she knew that, despite the occasion, it would be the same as every date they had been on.

Was this selfish of her? Was she entitled to expect more from Izzy? They had been dating for no more than a couple of months, so was that too short a time for her to be worried about the things she was? Mimi rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face into a pillow. Not now, she thought. She was tired and, though it was not very late, she just wanted to fall asleep and drive away her anxieties for another night. Getting to sleep could sometimes be hard, but when one finally got there it was a haven, a place that could be filled with anything, from endless imagination to a pleasant and worry-free nothingness. It was the latter that Mimi sought now. Nevertheless, as she finally drifted off, her thoughts still lay on Friday night and on Izzy, and despite everything, Mimi still managed to fall asleep with the smallest of smiles on her face.


	15. Chapter 15: An Evening to Remember

**Long time, no post. I'm sorry for the very long time in between chapters, but I had a hectic semester at uni – successful, but it nearly drove me mad. In light of this, I've made this chapter about double the average length, so hopefully it can make up for the lateness. To answer some reviewers:**

**candified smile: I just thought it would be embarrassing for T.K. and Kari to have indirectly caused massive damage to Gennai's house (plus the skipping class part). It made sense in my head :P**

**Koumi-Loc: Thanks, glad you liked it :)**

**Thanks also to YukiraKing, MitzvahRose, sleepy li0n, Seventh Sanctum, alumina03 and MusicFreak24601 (a Les Miserables fan? If so, awesome) for favouriting/following (sorry if I missed anyone).**

The weight of the world is something that everyone feels at some point. A sense that everything is closing in, pushing from all sides, pressing in on one's body to the very core. The feeling is entire, but is felt most harshly in the heart, the stomach and the head. The heart is squeezed, the stomach pressured and the face compressed, with jaw clenched and teeth giving off the slightest ache. All of these feelings compounded in Izzy Izumi as he walked with his girlfriend to what he hoped was the best birthday she had had, at least recently.

He had collected Mimi from her place not ten minutes before, thankfully avoiding the conscientious, but nonetheless off-putting greetings of Mr and Mrs Tachikawa. If Izzy had not been so preoccupied with his own nervousness, he would have spent more time revelling in her appearance. True to form, Mimi had taken a 'semi formal' dress code very seriously, and had clad herself in a modest but fitting midnight blue dress that sat just on her knees. Next to her he felt severely underdressed, despite the beautifully crisp white button-up and brand new black formal trousers he was wearing; 'simple but classy', Matt had said.

Mimi had not yet asked any questions about where they were going or what they would be doing, seeming to be content with small talk for the time being. That or she was onto how nervous Izzy was. He hoped it was just the former as he was expending considerable effort in trying to fake a sense of calm. Why was he like this, he asked himself. He had known Mimi for years and had been dating her for two months, so how could he still feel so immobilised and pressured by her? He allowed himself a subtle sigh in between conversation as they continued on towards their destination, before Mimi finally moved onto the subject of their outing that Friday evening.

"So Izzy… where are we headed?" she asked tentatively, but with the sweetest of smiles directed at him.

His breath caught in his throat for a split second, but he forced himself to exhale slowly, clearing his airway as he thought of how to answer.

"Umm… it's… it's a surprise." he told her, returning her smile as strongly and coolly as possible.

"Well, well Izzy. What's a girl to think?" Mimi replied, her smile full of mirth.

Izzy blushed slightly, staring at the ground, and could not help but grin to himself. Was he starting to have fun with this little bit of banter, he wondered.

"You'll see, we're almost there." he said breathily, looking back at her again.

* * *

"I still can't believe Tai and Sora are getting us to do this." T.K. groaned as he sat on the floor, pulling on his shoes at the Kamiya front door.

"Is it really that strange? I mean we are talking about my brother here." Kari replied, standing with a hand on the doorknob, ready to go.

"Yeah, but… the video recording?" T.K. retorted as he pointed at the small camcorder that Kari was carrying in a black pouch, replacing the digital camera she habitually took with her.

The brunette sighed as her best friend and co-conspirator rose to his feet, now ready to head off with her to complete the task they had been set. Even though she was not really all that surprised about the general idea of what they had been told to do, she had to admit that the filming part was an unusual step.

"OK, I guess that is a little strange." she admitted to the blond, "I wonder what it is that Izzy and Mimi are actually doing tonight…"

"Beats me, but it'd have to be something pretty special." T.K. reasoned.

Kari and T.K. had been instructed by Tai and Sora to film Mimi on her birthday date with Izzy. The younger pair had no idea what the couple were supposed to be doing that evening, and the only other details they had received were about a spot where they would have a good view of whatever was going on and that they should get there just before eight o'clock. When pressed about what exactly they would be filming, Tai and Sora had simply told them that they would find out when they got there.

Nevertheless, beyond the fact they were more or less being blackmailed into it, Kari could still feel an excitement within her, dulled only by a sense of uncertainty and the faintest trepidation. While she and, to a slightly lesser extent, T.K. had a reputation for being somewhat innocent and kind-hearted, the one thing that neither of them were above was eavesdropping and, in general, spying. The only time they ever used their gathered information was on their siblings, and then it was only for the very tame purposes of friendly embarrassment amongst the Digidestined, and perhaps getting a few petty concessions from time to time, like an extra half hour of TV time.

This of course was quite different, but once they had completed their little mission they had both agreed that they would find out what Tai and Sora wanted with the footage. Kari and T.K. trusted the older pair to not do anything malicious with the video, of course. Still, the younger duo knew they would be largely responsible for it, so it would not hurt to be sure.

"Are you still sure you wanna do this?" T.K. asked weakly as they both stood in still closed the doorway, with no sign of any conviction behind his doubts.

"Hey, unless you want Davis to be giving it to you over Gennai's house for the next six months, or have our parents find out we skipped class…" Kari replied with a shrug and a faint smile, "Besides, we might just have a little fun."

For a moment, T.K. stood expressionless. His body language, to Kari's well trained eye, betrayed his thoughts, however. The blond soon had an accepting smile on his face and gave her a small nod.

"Yeah, alright." he said in an unconvincing attempt to sound reluctant.

"C'mon, if we don't leave now we'll be late." the brunette announced before swinging the door open, letting them both out into the almost departed light of a very interesting evening.

* * *

The streets were familiar as the couple walked briskly to their secret destination. Mimi could only smile as she recognised her favourite strip in Odaiba. A tucked away row of cafés, clothing stores and shops selling fabulous trinkets that cost her a month's allowance whenever she gave into temptation and bought one. There were many lovely places to sit, eat and simply watch the night go by, which she guessed was what Izzy had in mind; a quiet night with just the two of them. Inwardly she had hoped for something a little more exciting, but she was grateful for him to have brought her to a place she loved so much.

Looking ahead on her right she spotted the two places which, of all the businesses on the strip, she had the most affection for. A quaint and cosy café that sat on a rooftop terrace, and below, just next door, was a small studio, where dance classes were held. She remembered sitting up at the café many times, looking down at the lessons being given and longing for an excuse to go, just once. In Japan, she had never really had a partner to go with before, and she had thought that, finally, Izzy might be that person. But when she had asked him a few weeks back, his reaction was less than she had hoped for. She had been disappointed, her best opportunity to go to this place dashed against the rocks of Izzy's self-consciousness and nervousness. Still, she had understood. She knew it was not really his thing.

So she was surprised when her hand, which had been gently entwined with his, felt a resistance to her continued movement. She jerked back slightly, coming to a standstill as though she were anchored to the spot, she glanced back to find that Izzy had stopped just outside the dance studio. Regarding him questioningly, Mimi could only see a blank expression staring back at her. If she had not been startled by their sudden halt, she would have noticed the tinge of red colouring his cheeks.

"Izzy, what's wrong? How come we're stopping here?" she asked of him, her tone both uncertain and curious.

"Because this is where we're going tonight." Izzy stated simply, doing an admirable job of keeping his voice stable and free of awkwardness.

Mimi's head jerked back an inch as he said this. She looked back and forth between the dance studio and her boyfriend with her mouth hanging slightly open, unable to contain her surprise. Finally she spoke back to him.

"Y-you didn't?" she blurted out, her voice reaching a seldom achieved pitch that many opera singers would be proud of.

"Uh huh… heh heh." Izzy barely managed to say as he rubbed the back of his head nervously.

Within in a second, Mimi had pulled Izzy into the strongest hug she could remember giving anybody, at least for many years. Shorter than she was, Mimi had buried his head in her neck and only released him long enough so he could get in a single, solitary breath before she kissed him full on the lips. Amidst this frenzy, it was possible to hear excited squeaks from the brunette that, as best as any observer could tell, were along the lines of 'Oh my gosh', 'I can't believe it' and something resembling 'thank you'.

When Mimi finally released him, all she saw was a dazed looking Izzy with a funny looking grin on his face. He blinked twice and hesitantly, but firmly took her hand, motioning to the door.

"Shall we?" he asked with the same grin, the redhead seemingly unable to wipe it from his face.

Mimi beamed at him and they both entered the studio, unaware of the pair watching them from afar.

* * *

"Wow, that was… really something." T.K. quipped as he stared after them.

"I'll say." Kari agreed heartily, turning her attention to the rooftop café next door. "So that's the place, is it?"

"Apparently. Sora said that there should be a glass panel we can look through from up there, if we get a table near the railing." the blond answered.

"Perfect." Kari said enthusiastically before asking, "Are you buying?"

"It is my turn." T.K. replied evenly, "Just don't go overboard, this place is supposed to be pretty pricey."

Kari smiled at him. "Don't worry, I'm not about to break the bank, T.K."

The two friends shared a laugh before dashing up to the café, not wanting to risk missing a moment of the fun.

* * *

Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes in and Izzy could still feel the weighty constrictions of his own expectations. The instructors at least were friendly, one a dark haired man who seemed to be of western descent but spoke flawless Japanese, and a women who looked like a local but had a strange, strine coloured accent. An odd couple to be sure, but they were very laidback and, given that only three other couples were there that evening, they were able to spend plenty of time to assist the youngest pair. All the others, though not experts by any means, had more experience than they did, Izzy could clearly see that. Since he and Mimi were the youngest there by at least half a decade, though, he was hardly surprised.

As for himself, while Izzy was pleasantly surprised that he had managed to more or less follow the instructors' directions to the letter, he still felt like a clumsy wannabe next to Mimi. Though, to his knowledge, she only had the slightest bit more experience than he did, which was to say not much at all, she had picked up all of the movements faster than he could ever have hoped to, like she knew them well already and needed only the briefest refresher to remind her. Up to now, Izzy had needed to concentrate and meticulously plan out each step he made before he did it, spending as much time looking down at his feet as he did at his partner. For Mimi, it seemed to him as if she were moving purely on instinct, every move effortless and natural. He knew that the waltz was one of the simpler ballroom dances, but he could not help but be absorbed in the ease with which she looked to be performing it with him.

As he looked up again, his eyes falling upon her contented face, he felt his mind begin to wander. At first he fought it, worried that a lack of attention would lead to a ruining of the moment for her, but as they continued their practice, their repeated steps, his resistance faded, taken away in the dance. His focus left his feet and he became transfixed, resting his eyes on nothing but Mimi's face, and again he saw the look of contentment. But as he kept watching her, he wondered if what she was feeling was much more than that.

'Content' was what Izzy thought to be the lowest measure of happiness, mere satisfaction. He had seen Mimi content before; happy with what she had, but nothing more. What he saw in her in those moments was greater than that, beyond the basest joy. Every movement she revelled in and it seemed her cares and worries had evaporated, burning away as if they had never existed to begin with. Her mood was expressed in the beauty of her movements. Despite the simplicity of the dance, she stepped, shifted and swayed so fluidly and naturally. If Izzy had been the poetic type, he might have described what he was seeing as art brought to life. Failing this, all he could manage was to hold her gaze and stare breathlessly into her eyes. Was he enjoying himself, he thought in the briefest moment of consciousness before being once again swept away.

"You two are really getting the hang of it." came a voice from the void outside Izzy and Mimi, accompanied by the sound of clapping.

Both teens immediately snapped from their trance and spun their heads to the left. The instructors and the other couples had all taken a break and had been watching them intently, for how long it was difficult to say. It had been the female instructor who had spoken, and both she and all the others were smiling and giving small polite claps.

"We were going to ask you both if you wanted a rest, but we didn't want to ruin the moment." the male instructor told them, flashing a knowing grin, first at Izzy and Mimi, and then at his partner which was returned, like they both knew well what they had seen in the two teens.

Izzy and Mimi both flushed red. Strangely though, Izzy no longer felt a weight in his stomach, or the constrictions of his chest or the pressure from within. He felt at ease.

Looking back at the brunette who had had him mesmerised mere moments before, he offered her a smile and his hand. Then might have been the time for a break, but their night was far from over.

* * *

"Aww, that's so sweet." Kari crooned, putting the camera on standby while Izzy and Mimi got of their feet for the time being.

"I'm kinda surprised, really. Izzy can actually dance." T.K. admitted, taking a sip from his hot chocolate before replacing the glass on the table and craning his neck over the railing to get a better view through the glass panel on the studio roof.

"It's just because Mimi's there with him." Kari stated casually, closing her eyes as she drank her own hot chocolate.

"Whatdya mean?" T.K. queried, cocking his head to the side and eying his best friend curiously.

"Well, just watch him." Kari replied, motioning over the balcony, "He actually looks like he's relaxed. There's no other reason he'd be calm right now."

T.K. glanced back at the couple, now sitting side by side, each drinking from a bottle of water. Speaking of water, T.K. had expected Izzy to be a fish out of it when he and Kari finally found what it was the pair was doing that evening. At first the redhead seemed to be just that. But, quite quickly, the stiffness and mechanical movement that Izzy was known to do when nervous, that could be recognised at a distance by anyone who knew him, had faded. Even now as he was just sitting talking to Mimi and the other couples in the studio, T.K. could see from his and Kari's vantage point that he was almost as much at ease as when he was just around his closest friends.

There was one difference though. The blond could see quite clearly that, although he seemed to be getting along with complete strangers after doing something no one would have believed he would do before that night, he was gravitating towards one person in particular. As if pulled ever so subtly to her, T.K. noticed that Izzy was extraordinarily close to Mimi. They were dating, but when it was just the Digidestined it was not quite the same thing as he was seeing now. Although it was from afar, the boy could see there was something in the way that Izzy very nearly clung to his girlfriend that was different than usual. It was almost like a sign of dependence.

"I guess you're right." T.K. said after a while.

"Mmhmm." Kari nodded, smiling, before looking back over the railing, "Oh look, they're starting again."

She readied the camera, T.K. merely shifting in his seat to see what was going on below. Slowly, Izzy and Mimi returned to their feet and, with the other couples, prepared to resume their lesson.

* * *

He was lost, completely lost in the moment as the music and the others around him faded away into irrelevance. All that he cared about was what he was doing and who he was looking at. And she stared right back at him, happy as he had ever seen her. At the back of his mind he could scarcely believe that he was doing this. To say he was out of his regular comfort zone was perhaps the greatest understatement one could make. Yet there he was, not a care or a worry weighing down upon him as he looked back at her silky, light brown hair, shining hazel eyes and infectious smile. He was so engrossed, he barely noticed his own upturned lips, perfectly mirroring hers.

In her image was a comfort he was just barely familiar with, like a lost memory that one could just barely recall, but from where could not be said. The longer it continued, the looser and calmer he felt. He was lightheaded to say the least. Izzy was not even alert enough to be able to panic about this heretofore unknown sensation. As time slowly flowed by, he also became more confident.

* * *

Mimi could not stop smiling. She had been worried that Izzy would not take to the class, but she had swiftly been proven wrong. Now, as they neared the end of the last dance of the night, she knew that a hurdle had been overcome and her fears and discontent were allayed. It all seemed so childish in retrospect, now that they were fulfilling one of her small wishes, something she truly had not expected from Izzy, but she felt silly for having doubted him. He cared too much to let his inhibitions disappoint others for long.

As she locked her eyes on him, she saw that his were somewhat distant, glazed over. And yet there was no doubt he was there with her in every moment as it passed. Mimi felt a warmth deep within, born of the happiness that filled her. Still, she knew that this moment would soon be over, and while the night would continue, the magic of their dance would end much before she would have liked.

Entering the last few seconds of the dance, Mimi sensed Izzy drawing closer. His dark eyes had closed and he seemed to be drifting, his every motion more fluid and relaxed than she had ever seen from him before. As they completed their final step, Izzy leaned in the last of the way and their lips met just as their bodies became still. Mimi smiled into the kiss, surprised but elated that this time he had taken the plunge. Despite the trance he had seemed to be in, Izzy was gentle and steady, his hands having stayed put on her hips from the dance. It all ended too quickly, though, as Izzy jerked back, furiously red and once again fully alert.

"I… umm… uh…" he stammered, obviously taken aback by what he had done on impulse.

Mimi beamed as he tensed up and continued to stumble over his words, but at the same time could not stop grinning, nor had he removed his hands from her waist. Giggling lightly, she leaned in and planted her own kiss on his, silencing him and making him slump slightly where he stood.

"You're full of surprises tonight." Mimi breathed softly, drawing him into a tight hug, "This has been wonderful Izzy, thank you for bringing me here."

Izzy rubbed the back of his neck and continued to flush a brilliant red, but this time he managed to find his words.

"Anything for you."

* * *

"That went really well." T.K. declared, sounding as if he was surprised.

"What, the dancing or the filming?" Kari asked cheerily as she tucked away the video camera in its pouch.

"Both." the blond replied with a grin.

"Agreed." Kari nodded, giving him her own smile.

It had been about ten minutes since Izzy and Mimi had finished their dance lesson, and the younger pair had both niggled each other and giggled up a storm when they saw the couple lip lock at the conclusion of the final dance. They had made sure to review the ending footage several times.

"Where do you think they'll both go now? It's not really too late yet." T.K. pondered aloud as he absentmindedly clinked his spoon around the inside of his now empty glass.

Kari chewed on the string of the camera pouch, which was now around her neck, as she wondered where indeed the two they had observed would go.

"I dunno…" she mused, "That's a good-"

"Kari! T.K.! What are you two doing here?"

The two friends jumped in their seats and spun around to see Mimi and Izzy both smiling and waving in their direction as they approached their table.

"Oh…" Kari moaned as she forced a smile and waved back.

"Nuts…" T.K. finished her thought, mirroring her actions.

The older duo closed the gap quickly and both stood smiling down at their younger friends.

"We didn't expect to find you two here." Izzy commented, leaning on the table and smiling obliviously.

"Yeah, had no idea you'd both be on a date too." Mimi added wickedly, flashing her own smile with a clear mischievousness.

Kari and T.K. both blushed violently, looking away from each other faster than you could blink.

"No, no, no… we were just… umm…" Kari struggled, but T.K. was a little more quick on his feet.

"Just on our way back from Ken's place." T.K. insisted calmly, the bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face noticed only by Kari, out of the corner of her eye, "All us younger Destined met up there this afternoon and me and Kari just wanted to stop for a hot chocolate on the way home."

Kari could see an understanding and accepting look on Izzy's face, but Mimi's, while sporting a smile, looked to be much less convinced.

"Right, of course you were. We believe you." she said with the lightest touch of sarcasm, turning her head towards Kari and giving the younger girl a wink.

Kari saw T.K. plant his palm over his face. First it was Sora and their siblings, now Mimi was giving it to them. Not wanting to sit through any more teasing, or more importantly run the risk of the older pair figuring out why they were really there, Kari decided it was time for T.K. and her to leave.

"Well, speaking of home, T.K. and I have to get back to ours." Kari said hastily, getting to her feet and grabbing the blond by the wrist, "Let's go, T.K."

"Oh, you don't have to go, I didn't mean to-" Mimi tried to say, but the two best friends were halfway to the door in less than five seconds.

"Sorry, gotta go, bye!" Kari hurriedly called over her shoulder as she and T.K. made their escape, leaving a bewildered Mimi and Izzy behind.

* * *

"What was that about?" Izzy wondered, watching as the two younger teens disappeared out of the café.

"I dunno… I hope I didn't drive them off." Mimi said, a little taken aback by how quickly T.K. and Kari had bolted.

"No, I don't think it was your doing, Mimi." Izzy reassured her, switching his gaze to his girlfriend.

"Well whatever, at least we get some privacy." Mimi responded, giving him a grin which he could not help but return.

Taking their seats, they were quickly attended to by a casually dressed waiter who took their orders and left them in peace in a matter of seconds. Izzy blinked, shocked at how fast it had all transpired, but Mimi was not fazed in the slightest.

"They're pretty quick here." she told him cheerily.

"So I see…" Izzy acknowledged, staring after the waiter who had disappeared into the café kitchen.

Conversation between the two was light, but flowed freely and naturally, pausing only briefly when their orders arrived. Izzy felt more at ease than he could have hoped. It seemed that all the times someone had advised him to 'take the plunge', they had been right. If Izzy had been told a few weeks ago that he would take Mimi out dancing for her birthday, he never would have believed it. But now, under the lights of the café, and of the moon and the stars, he sat with her having done just that, and within he felt as though his mind and body had been rejuvenated somehow as an unfamiliar energy and a rush of feeling flowed inside him, through his veins and through every nerve.

There was one thing, however, that he had saved for after the dancing. He had searched for the entirety of Thursday afternoon and up until an hour before he was to pick up Mimi before he found what he hoped was the right gift. It was hardly perfect, a simple silver bracelet that had taken his notice while combing through the Aqua City Mall. What caught his eye was the small charm attached to it. Small and teardrop shaped, it bore a strange resemblance to Mimi's Crest of Sincerity. He had wondered whether or not he could have had it engraved with the same pattern as her crest, but being a high school student he was not exactly rolling in money. The modest amount he had saved up was enough to cover the gift and the evening, but his personal funds had dried up as a result. The one thing he could say though, looking across the table at the smiling brunette, was that it was all most certainly worth it.

As they continued their chatter, Izzy reached into his pocket under the table and gripped the small box that contained his present to Mimi. The more he thought about it now, though, the cornier it seemed. Coming across something in the shape of her crest was a surprisingly good find, but he wondered now if going with it, or with jewellery at all was too cliché or predictable for Mimi. The more he thought, the more doubts sprang up in his mind, and as this continued a familiar pressure, a constriction, began to form within him.

"Izzy? Is something wrong?" Mimi asked gently, snapping his full attention back to reality.

Izzy shook himself off mentally.

"C'mon, you can do this – don't ruin this now." he told himself mentally. He needed to just have a little confidence and everything would be fine, he thought.

"Izzy?" Mimi prodded, now sounding slightly concerned.

"Uh, Mimi. I really hope you've enjoyed your birthday." he started off, pushing himself.

"Izzy, it's been lovely." Mimi assured him, smiling, "Thank you so much for everything, I've literally wanted to go dancing at that place for ages."

"Well," Izzy continued, encouraged by her response, "there's one more thing I have for you tonight."

He produced the box from his pocket, placing it on the table and gently sliding it towards her. He smiled sheepishly at her, just a little uneasily, but her expression of warm gratitude softened his nerves.

"Oh, Izzy you didn't… oh my…" Mimi trailed off as she opened the case and saw what lay within.

"I hope you like it." he said tentatively, but it was barely a second before all his remaining doubts were washed away by her reaction.

"Izzy, it's beautiful! Where did you find this?" Mimi exclaimed, gingerly lifting it out of the box and holding it in front of her face, her expression a mix of surprise and delight.

"Oh, nowhere in particular." Izzy replied bashfully, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks.

Mimi clipped the bracelet around her left wrist and raised her arm to inspect it. She then lowered it and beamed back at him.

"I love it." the brunette declared, "I'll wear it every day."

Feeling it was right to do so, Izzy reached across the table and lightly grasped her hand in his. She gently squeezed as he looked happily at her, unable to resist the overwhelming upward tugging of the corners of his mouth. He knew that that night he had brought forth a side to him that was not often seen. This part of him was not bound to the comforts of the familiar, like someone afraid of the greater world. He had seen this in himself when they had travelled the Digital World all those years ago, and now he had brought it out in his regular life, and there was one unmistakeable feeling that this part of his persona brought. As he took in the girl that sat across from him, the first one ever to have driven him, in her own way, as much as the challenges of the Digital World years before, Izzy knew that he was happy, happier than at any other time he could remember. And there was so much more to come.

* * *

Tai raised his head and placed his attention on the doorway of the Kamiya apartment as T.K. and Kari entered. Both seemed to be rather giggly as they took off their shoes and made their way into the living area.

"Hey Tai." T.K. said, giving the older teen a small wave.

Tai just smiled and waved back. It was agreed that T.K. would be staying the night to save him the trouble of walking the extra way home. Tai had even given up his bed for the 'guest', offering to sleep on the couch he was currently occupying. But at that moment the sleeping arrangements were furthest from his mind.

"You get it?" the elder Kamiya asked expectantly, flashing a wide grin.

Kari removed the camera pouch from around her neck and dangled it in front of her, swinging it back and forth slowly like a pendulum.

"Oh yeah, we got it."


End file.
